Sabre Holdings (Southlake, TX) today issued the following statement concerning American Airlines and the on-going dispute of flight listings:
“For a number of months, American Airlines has taken actions in an attempt to impose a costly, unproven and unnecessary system on agencies and corporations, including withholding fare content from Sabre. We believe these actions are harmful to our agency and corporate customers, as well as consumers, making it harder and more costly to comparison shop. Sabre is taking actions to protect its interests and those of its customers by supporting airlines who value the transparency and efficiency of the proven system we provide.”
American Airlines, in turn, issued the following statement:
“American Airlines today (January 5) received notice from Sabre that it has taken a set of punitive actions against the airline and its customers, despite the fact that American has met all its obligations and continues to work in good faith with Sabre.
The actions, which include biasing its shopping displays, are anti-consumer, anti-competitive and harmful to its subscribing agents.
Sabre’s actions are discriminatory and patently inconsistent with both its contractual obligations and its professed goal of ensuring full transparency for the benefit of consumers and travel agents. In contrast, the actions only serve to protect Sabre’s market position and attempt to force airlines and travel agencies to rely exclusively on its legacy systems that only lead to higher fares and fewer choices for consumers.
American is committed to working with all efficient distribution channels, including traditional travel agencies, online travel agencies and global distribution systems
American Airlines and American Eagle fares and schedules – including all international and domestic classes of service – are widely available through a number of outlets, including American’s own website, AA.com, which features our Lowest Fare Guarantee, as well as through American’s reservations agents, thousands of travel agencies in locations worldwide, online travel agencies such as Priceline.com and metasearch engines such as Kayak.com.”
Ironically Sabre Holdings was created by American Airlines (Dallas/Fort Worth) and AA spun off the subsidiary as an initial public offering (IPO) on March 15, 2000.
On December 12, 2006, private-equity firms TPG Capital and Silver Lake Partners announced it was purchasing Sabre Holdings Corporation for about $4.5 billion in cash, plus the assumption of $550 million in debt. Sabre joined its three primary GDS competitors, Galileo, Amadeus and Worldspan, as being privately owned.