A Sabre agency handles a
large corporate account in my city. The account had tentatively
decided to switch to our Worldspan agency.
Then, before a contract could be signed, American Airlines
told the account that it would have to charge a fee per booking if
the account's business went from Sabre to Worldspan.
Why would American do such a thing, as it doesn't own Sabre
anymore and, until the sale of Worldspan becomes official, owns
part of World-span? Can we successfully sue American for its
behavior?
A: American's behavior is bizarre and
economically unjustified, as far as I can see.
In most states, these facts would give you a good legal claim
for interference with prospective economic advantage.
In another context, American claims it pays Sabre a higher
booking fee than it pays World-span. In the EveryFare contract,
American states that agencies signing up for the program must pay
American 11 cents more for each Sabre booking than for each
Worldspan booking.
Either American is misleading agencies in the EveryFare contract
or it is acting irrationally here.
Is there another reason American might favor Sabre agencies?
Perhaps it has some side agreement with Sabre to reduce the higher
booking fee listed in the EveryFare contract.
However, if that were so, Sabre would be in violation of the DOT
rule that requires each GDS vendor to charge the same fee to each
airline for the same level of service. It would not be safe to bet
that Sabre was in violation.
In the absence of any business justification, you would have a
good claim for interference with prospective economic advantage in
most states.
This claim would require you to show that American purposely
interfered with your probable contract award and did so with no
economic or competitive justification.
In the states that do not recognize such a legal claim, you
would need to have signed the contract with the account before you
could successfully sue.
As always, when you think of suing an airline, you need to
consider the risk that the airline might pull its plate in
retaliation. As you know, any airline can pull its plate at any
time for any reason.
Mark Pestronk is a Fairfax, Va.-based attorney specializing
in travel law. He answers your questions in the TravelWeekly.com
Legal Ease forum. To contact Mark directly, e-mail him at [email protected].