Friday, August 08, 2008

Kayak-American spat heading to the courts

Just when people thought the row between Kayak and Amercian Airlines couldn't get any more bitter (last installment: War of Words), it turns out that American Airlines has now filed a lawsuit against Kayak.

Papers were filed in Tarrant County, Texas, on 6 August. [Open PDF]

This suit is to stop Defendants ongoing violations, and recover damanges for prior violations, of the terms of its contract with American to distribute American fares and related information.
It goes on:
Defendant intentionally violated these rules in order to secure lucrative referral or other fees form third parties in connection with sending them bookings on American flights or giving them preferred rights, which caused Amercian to incure substantional, unwarranted costs.
This is going to get very messy indeed.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ouch! From a consumers perspective. If I am booking a flight, and it’s cheaper to fly with American Airlines and book through Cheaptickets or Orbitz, then that’s the kind of result I would expect to find in a meta search engine. If, it’s the same price, then I would prefer to book direct with the airline.

Have Kayak done this because of flight price differences or is it because they earn more commission?

If it’s the later, then you can understand why AA have taken this stance.

Oporto Hotels said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Travolution Blogger said...

Oporto Hotels: irrelevant to the conversation. Spam.