WASHINGTON -- Southwest and Orbitz reached an agreement under which
the airline will drop its lawsuit against the online agency, which
is owned by the country's five largest airlines.
Southwest sued Orbitz in May, before the agency's official June
launch, alleging the test site provided misleading and inaccurate
information about Southwest flights.
With the dispute raging, Southwest on July 4 stopped filing its
fares with the Airline Tariff Publishing Co., which is where Orbitz
obtained the fares. That made the lawsuit irrelevant, unless Orbitz
finds another way to access and show Southwest information.
"We reserve the right to go at it again if we need to," a
Southwest spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, Orbitz filed a mandated six-month report on its
operations to the Transportation Department, telling the DOT the
site has benefited competition and consumers by finding lower fares
and forcing online agency competitors to improve.
Orbitz also maintained it never had exclusive fares, in part
because airlines also put their best fares on their own Web
sites.
The Interactive Travel Services Association, whose members
include Travelocity and Expedia, countered, "There are a growing
number of fares and discounts that Orbitz owners are distributing
through Orbitz but not through other online agencies, despite
repeated attempts to obtain them." (For more about ITSA's position
on Orbitz, click here.)
ITSA wants the DOT to force changes in Orbitz, but the DOT has
said only that it will review Orbitz's six-month report.
As for the Justice Department, Orbitz general counsel Gary
Doernhaefer said, "It has not been an active investigation, at
least not in the last 12 months."
The only recent contact, he said, has been Orbitz calling the
Justice Department to urge it to drop the investigation.