ASTA Asks DOT to Require AA to Return Fares to EDIFACT

The American Society of Travel Advisors said it has asked the U.S. Department of Transportation to temporarily require American Airlines to restore all its content to the EDIFACT distribution channel, four months after the carrier restricted some content to New Distribution Capability channels.

ASTA said it filed its requests with DOT on July 31, and it also requested DOT prevent AA from forbidding automated re-shopping in its agency agreements. ASTA said it was joined in the filing by the U.K.’s Business Travel Association, as well as the Travel Management Coalition—a group of six of the largest travel management companies—as well as Folatur, an association of Latin American travel agency groups.

ASTA in its filing said American’s removal from EDIFACT channels of as much as 40 percent of its fares caused significant price disparities between EDIFACT and direct or NDC-based connections, “with the established channel almost invariably being the higher-priced option.” It also spurred “difficulty, and in many cases, an impossibility to shop for, book and service bookings in the traditional manner, thereby resulting in “extreme operational inefficiencies resulting in higher transactional costs and an impairment of the ability of both TMCs and their corporate clients to fulfill the duty of care owed to business travelers.”

ASTA also suggested insufficient U.S. airline industry competition helped allow AA to make its move and asked DOT to assess the competitive landscape.

The association has sparred with the airline over its move before. ASTA in March publicly called upon American to delay its rollout, to no avail.

American in a statement in response to ASTA’s filing said: “NDC is not some unproven technology. Many of the biggest names in travel distribution have been using NDC for years. Last year, one out of every three travel agency bookings on American have been made using NDC connections. All of the largest online travel agencies have been connected to American for years.”

The carrier also said it had “made huge investments to make travel agencies’ transition to NDC easier” and had “not withheld any information that would discourage or prevent comparison shopping.”

Chris Davis www.businesstravelnews.com