Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Following Expedia, Sabre To Pull American Listings

In an acceleration of the tiff between online travel sites and airline American Airlines, travel aggregator Sabre said Wednesday that it will be dropping its listings of American Airlines fares in August, and will be downgrading American Flights in its system so that they are harder to find until then. Sabre, which helps online travel sites book fares on a variety of airlines, said it was ""taking actions to protect its interests and those of its customers," claiming that American's own, direct booking systems were "costly, unproven and unnecessary". The move follows Bellevue-based Expedia's move to drop American Airlines over the weekend, in sympathy with competitor Orbitz. Both Expedia and Orbitz currently use companies like Sabre to handle booking of flights with American.