American Airlines Revives Direct-Connect Moves While Sabre Questions Feasibility
Photo Credit: American Airlines planes queue up at Philadelphia International Airport earlier this year. Skift / Sean O'Neill
Skift Take
American is reviving its direct-booking conflict with distribution middlemen like Sabre. Advances in technology and fat profits at U.S. airlines make the threat more plausible now than a decade ago.
It has been many years since a U.S. airline paid incentives to travel agencies for booking tickets, barring a few rare exceptions.
That's why American Airlines caught many industry insiders by surprise when it recently said that it would offer to do just that, resuming a practice that ended well over a decade ago.
The twist is that the payment comes with a catch this time: To get the incentives, travel management companies have to use American Airlines' new technology platform to book tickets directly with the airline. That means bypassing the third-party vendors that travel agencies tend to rely on, such as Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport.
Specifically, in June, American Airlines, said it would start to pay travel agencies $2 per net segment (essentially each leg of a flight) done via its technical connections that go around the computers of companies like Sabre.
Sabre Responds
Sabre quickly responded to American's announcement by saying that it is willing to work with the c
