In a move that potentially has disturbing ramifications for travelers trying to find cheap airplane tickets and cheap vacation packages, American Airlines has informed Orbitz, one of Americas largest online travel companies, that it can no longer sell or display Americans fares on the Orbitz.com website.
Although no other online travel sites have been impacted by American Airlines decision concerning Orbitz, many travel experts fear that this is only the beginning of a series of moves to pull airfares off of independent travel Internet websites.
Orbitz is recognized as a contributor to a revolution of how travelers shop for flights, by consolidating airfares from many airlines onto a single website, empowering customers to easily shop for the cheapest deals.
American Airlines says that it wants greater control of how it sells tickets and other goods and services to online travel companies. American wants online travel companies to use an electronic pipeline it has created called AA Direct Connect.
If other airlines follow Americans lead and decide to delist fares now showing on online travel websites, travelers would lose a powerful money saving tool, namely the ability to compare fares from multiple airlines by visiting a single travel Internet website.
Ultimately experts fear that airline tickets prices will rise if comparison shopping is made more difficult and time consuming.
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