American Airlines has filed an antitrust lawsuit in US district court in Texas against the travel website Orbitz.com and the distributor of its booking information. The airline accuses the company of monopoly tactics.
Travelport, a Delaware-based company, owns a controlling interest in Orbitz and has an exclusive contract to collect booking data from airlines and distribute it to Orbitz and other travel websites. Travelport controls the sales of about 30% of all airline bookings made by US-based travel agents. All airlines pay a commission to Travelport for every reservation made by travel agents and websites that use Travelport data. American claims this is a monopoly that blocks American’s cheaper, alternative distribution system for booking data.
Orbitz called the lawsuit baseless and accused American of playing "the role of the marketplace bully.