Skift Take
Even after the American Society of Travel Advisors weighed in with a plea to delay the removal of 40 percent of airfares from traditional retail channels by eight months, the carrier has confirmed there’ll be no 11th hour reprieve. All the travel industry can do now is brace itself.
American Airlines has ruled out delaying the removal of 40 percent of its airfares from traditional retail channels next month.
That's despite lobbying by the American Society of Travel Advisors, which asked the carrier to push back its move date of April 3 to the end of the year.
The society, which represents 160,000 travel agency workers, wrote to the carrier on March 8, arguing that withholding such a substantial portion of its fares from “critical independent distribution channels” will have a negative impact on corporate travelers.
With just two weeks to go, a spokesperson at American Airlines told Skift on Thursday that it was still a categorical "no."
Bullying AccusationIn its letter, Zane Kerby, president and CEO of the American Society of Travel Advisors, said the “sudden bullying of valuable distribution partners into breakneck-speed implementation won’t serve our shared customers.”
The society claims many corporate travel agencies, global distribution systems (namely Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport) and third-party booking technology partners, including Concur, have stated they will not be prepared to facilitate New Distribution Capability implementation by April.
New Distribution Capability is a controversial technology standard developed b