American Airlines and Travelport have come to a working arrangement to allow the continued distribution of the airline’s fares via the Apollo, Galileo and Worldspan global distribution systems (GDSs).
The airline and global distribution system provider have issued a joint statement saying the existing full content agreements have been extended.
This means travel agencies will continue to be able to access all of AA’s fares on Travelport’s three GDSs.
Details have not been revealed, but the statement did say the existing agreements would run “concurrently” and were now “no longer due to expire in 2011”.
“Terms of Travelport’s subscriber opt-in programs for American remain unchanged,” it added. “No further details will be disclosed at this time.”
Some may hope this could signal a move to end the lengthy and high-profile legal battle between the airline and the GDS provider.
However, ABTN understands that neither party has dropped their law suits, and AA continues its direct connect strategy.