Court Demands American Airlines List Its Flights On Orbitz 93
schwit1 writes "American Airlines, which removed its flights from Orbitz.com late last year, was ordered by a Chicago court on Thursday to allow the travel site access to its flight and fare information. American Airlines filed an anti-trust suit against Travelport in December, claiming that the company, which owns just under half of Orbitz's shares and runs the service compiling fare information for travel site, was trying to control the sale of tickets. Before the lawsuit, a considerable amount of American's revenue had been coming from tickets booked through Orbitz and Travelport."
Free Trade? (Score:4, Interesting)
Can't I sell my goods and services where I want?
Southwest? (Score:2, Interesting)
Is this step 1 in reregulating the airline industry?
Re:Southwest? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I avoid AA Like the plague anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
I have this "single issue" mentality, and I think it makes both logical and emotional sense. Basically, consumers are individuals and have very little power in a marketplace dominated by huge corporations. We don't get to haggle over prices much; it's pretty much take-it-or-leave-it. We can theoretically vote with our wallets by going to a competitor.
However, the big businesses just end up colluding. It's usually not overt. They're not having meetings to decide these things, but they follow each other when their "competitors" show some success. So eventually, all the competition is overcharging and under-providing while claiming that the value they provide is fair. They collectively have the upper hand, because a consumer can't say "no" to ALL of them. If you gotta make a phone call or get on the Internet or travel somewhere fast, then you have to agree to be taken advantage of by these implicitly colluding corporate monsters.
So over time, things get worse and worse for the consumer. ISPs cap bandwidth. Phone companies get away with making their users pay for minutes they never use, or charge them ten times as much when they use too much. Airlines begin to nickel-and-dime you to for everything -- any bet on how long it will take them to start installing pay toilets on the planes?
We poor consumers basically just keep taking the worst of it, until we finally just refuse to take it any more. Sometimes when it gets really bad, we file class-action lawsuits. Those make lawyers rich and make us feel better, and sometimes the defendant backs down and plays nice for a while. But if banding together and suing is not an option, then we have to use whatever other weapons we have to fight back. One good way is to bad-mouth an offending business at every opportunity.
As screwed-over consumers, the value we get from latching on to such a "single issue" is not that we are refusing our patronage to an entity who offended us, but that it gives us something specific to focus on when we share our tales of woe in hopes of costing them more business than just our own.
I haven't bought a Sony product since the PS2 -- back then my single issue was proprietary formats. Then it was the rootkit. Then Blu-Ray, then removing Linux from the PS3, and now their inability to keep from being rooted like a clogged toilet.
A few weeks back, I ordered a steak from the Chilis across the way. It was a to-go order, and the place is walking distance from my house. I'm not expecting much -- it is Chilis after all, but I do expect that the food be edible. I ordered it cooked medium. Now, I knew I was taking a bit of a risk. The quality of that place has steadily gone down over the last year -- food badly seasoned, or brought to the table cold when dining in, or long waits both before and after ordering, what have you. So, I go get my steak, and don't check it before I leave. I get home, open it, and find a thin piece of shoe leather. The cook had sliced it open down the middle, must have clearly seen that it was beyond well-done, and boxed it up for me anyway. Not wanting to bother going back for a new one, I decided to have a bite anyway, and discovered that it was old meat on the verge of being rancid (which must be why they overcooked it.) That was over the top. So I took the food back and pointed out every horrid thing about that box of food to the manager. When he offered me a replacement, and coupons for next time, I told him I'm never setting foot in there again. And I haven't. Not just his Chilis, but every other one, and I've even diverted group lunches at work to other places by telling that story.
It's not that they fucked up one steak. It's that their quality has been declining over the last couple years while their prices have been going up. The steak was just the final straw, and it's a good solid example of why not to give them my custom. Maybe they'll learn their lesson; if I ever become convinced of that then I'll give 'em another try.
Re:Free Trade? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are tyrants and warlords really worse than the current situation? At least with warlords there is a meritocracy of sorts. (The strongest are in charge). In the current situation the most duplicitous make the laws for their own benefit, while enriching their pockets, and claiming to serve society. The most conniving are the alpha dogs. Give me a meritocracy based on steel and might any day over a meritocracy based on duplicity and lies.
I would rather have an outcome based on an old fashioned gun battle, than being decided by a team of overpriced lawyers hired to stretch the truth beyond recognition to a jury. At least with a gun fight you are not lying to yourself and saying your cause has any moral high ground. This is what the current legal / governmental climate in the USA, has led me to believe.
-When the laws become criminal, only criminals obey the laws.