The public back-and-forth between the American Society of Travel Advisors and American Airlines continues, with ASTA reiterating that it wants the Department of Transportation to investigate the airline's distribution practices and take enforcement action.
In a Dec. 20 complaint to the DOT that was a reply to American's response to ASTA's original complaint, ASTA said American unfairly removed 40% of its fares from legacy systems that travel advisors have used for decades. ASTA said the move harmed travel agencies and their customers.
American had warned travel agencies in October 2022 that they would soon need to book from systems based on New Distribution Capability (NDC) technology in order to receive all of the airline's content. At the time, American said it had reached deals with the major GDSs to make NDC connections available to their travel agency clients.
ASTA has been pushing back against American's NDC strategy since then. After American made the NDC move last April 3, ASTA said there were service shortcomings with NDC bookings, and ASTA said those problems persist today.
ASTA listed several issues, including an inability to hold a booking; guest bookings are not allowed; an inability to book air, car and hotel at the same time during the booking flow (the air booking must be completed first, ASTA claimed); no virtual payment capability; and the inability to support rules or custom fields, which is important for agencies that manage corporate accounts.
"The fact that these deficiencies remain reveals that very little progress has been made to close the functionality gap," ASTA said.
The Society accused American of "arrogantly" dismissing desires of consumers who book with travel agencies. ASTA also pushed back against AA's assertion that agencies were "hostage to old technology" and unwilling to modernize.
"Nothing could be further from the truth," ASTA said. "The reality is that AA was the party 'not ready to modernize,' as its solution was (and remains) unready to meet the needs of the industry, yet it forged ahead anyway despite the predicted chaos that ensued."
Further, ASTA said making the NDC connection is an expensive proposition. While some companies, like the OTAs, have adopted NDC technology, the Society argues they have the budgets to do so, whereas most small and medium-sized agencies do not.
And, ASTA said, OTA clients are largely traveling for leisure, but agencies managing corporate travel must offer a level of duty of care to their clients.
In requiring agencies to use an NDC connection to receive full content, American "abused the power associated with its dominant market position in an oligopolistic industry," ASTA argued.
The bottom line, said ASTA, is that the legacy GDS is travel agencies' most effective booking method, and they now don't have the lowest American Airlines fares available to them. ASTA wants the DOT to rectify that situation by requiring American to restore the content it took away.