Over the weekend, Expedia just dropped American. This is an escalation from the dispute as it stood last week, when Expedia was burying American Airlines fares at the bottom of its pages. Part of this was due to American’s pulling its fares from Orbitz (Expedia competitor). Plus, Expedia is getting ready for negotiations for a new contract with American, and they want to protect the business model they’ve established – airlines send these online companies their fares, customers go to their sites to explore their options and maybe through that travel site rent a car, hotel, or get some other kind of extra thing. Expedia told Reuters on Sunday:
“American Airlines is attempting to introduce a new direct connect model that will result in higher costs and reduced transparency for consumers, making it difficult to compare American Airlines’ ticket prices and options with offerings by other airlines.”
American wants customers to go to its site and buy all kinds of extras in addition to plane tickets – check extra bags, movies on flights, meals and so on.
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