Travelport and American Airlines have announced a new long-term, global distribution agreement. In addition to enabling continued access to shop and book the full content of flights marketed by American Airlines, the new agreement positions Travelport to become the first global distribution system to offer access to American’s other products and services.
Following a period of technical integration, Travelport and American plan to use their technology, including Travelport’s Universal API technology and American’s XML-based direct connect interface, to deliver additional capabilities to all Travelport subscribers, including the ability to sell American’s newly introduced Main Cabin Extra seating product.
Main Cabin Extra makes travel more comfortable by providing four to six inches of additional legroom and Group 1 boarding. As Main Cabin Extra seating is close to the front of the aircraft, customers can get on and off much faster. By making Main Cabin Extra available through global distribution systems for the first time, American is delivering on its commitment to make the travel experience more connected and comfortable from start to finish.
“Travelport deserves praise for working with American to create a solution that can display all of our product options to travel agents in a transparent, customer-friendly way that also clearly differentiates American’s products from other airlines,” said Derek DeCross, Vice President of Global Sales for American Airlines.
Dan Westbrook, Vice President and General Manager of Global Distribution Sales and Service, Travelport, said: “American is an industry leader, and the perfect partner with which to build upon Travelport’s airline partnership approach to merchandising, optional ancillary sales and product differentiation. All of our subscribers will continue to access American’s full content, while American can merchandise its full line of products through Travelport, providing consumers and travelers a transparent marketplace and the ability to shop and book all services at their channel of choice.”
American and Travelport have also resolved all litigation between themselves. The terms of the settlement agreement require review and approval by the court presiding over AMR Corporation’s restructuring.
