Amadeus wants to be a player in the U.S. and thinks supplanting ITA at Kayak would do just that

Madrid-based travel-tech company Amadeus has a tangled history with ITA Software, and now Amadeus is looking to ride to Kayak's rescue and supplant ITA as Kayak's chief provider of airfare data. Since June, when Amadeus and Kayak revealed that they would expand beyond their Europe partnership and begin to use Amadeus Meta Pricer for some U.S. flight results, too, there has been speculation about the depth of that new role. But, Luis Maroto, the Amadeus CEO, pulled no punches when describing the plan August 3 during Amadeus' second quarter earnings call. Replacing ITA Asked whether Amadeus would displace or work in tandem with ITA at Kayak and new-customer-Hipmunk, too, Maroto said: "No, the idea clearly is to replace ITA today. Well, that is what we are doing with them [Kayak]. As I said, with Kayak, we are