The American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) is tackling what it calls American Airlines' dominant United States market position, seeking regulatory antitrust intervention in terms of fare distribution, airport slot allocation, travel agency agreements, competition in the domestic airline sector, and a review of airline alliances.

In a September 22 letter, ASTA, in particular, requests the Department of Transportation (DOT) to issue an order temporarily directing American to immediately restore parity between its new New Distribution Capability (NDC) fare platform implemented unilaterally on April 3, 2023, and the traditional EDIFACT protocol that has been in use since the 1980s.

This follows ASTA's antitrust complaint against American filed in March 2023 with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) after the carrier immediately removed more than 40% of its fare inventory from traditional booking channels when it switched to the NDC.

Developed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the NDC is a technology communication standard that fundamentally changes how airlines provide fare and ancillary content to travel agencies, travel management companies (TMCs) and other ticket distributors through a set of application programming interfaces or APIs. NDC is anticipated to replace the current EDIFACT protocol eventually.

ASTA accuses American of effectively bludgeoning an ill-prepared US travel trade into adopting the NDC model on its own terms and timeline, "with no countervailing competitive benefit whatsoever", and "substantially harming" US consumers in the process. It demands that the DOT take immediate action to address this, arguing that American's actions are born from its dominant market position resulting from "insufficient regulatory oversight, approval of an imprudent number of airline mergers, and a grant of widespread antitrust immunity".

ASTA also wants the DOT to:

  • direct the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to require American to surrender enough slots at capacity-constrained Washington National, New York JFK, and New York La Guardia, to restore "meaningful levels of competition" to the Washington and New York markets;
  • prevent American from banning in its agency agreements the use of technology software to identify lower fares;
  • undertake a comprehensive review of the current state of competition in the US domestic airline industry; and
  • review its previous approval of global carrier alliances and antitrust immunity.

ASTA, which represents 8,000 travel suppliers including travel agents, airlines, hotels, car rental companies, cruise lines, and tour operators, says the US travel industry largely remains unprepared for American's NDC implementation, with which the airline proceeded unilaterally despite numerous letters and warnings from the industry organisation. This resulted in "widespread disruption to the air ticket distribution ecosystem and serious consumer harm in the form of higher airfares and further reduced competition". It claims that price discrimination between the two distribution channels has resulted in up to 58% discounts on NDC. "ASTA respectfully submits that there is overwhelming evidence that AA's actions constitute an ongoing unfair practice that warrants swift and decisive action by the Department," it states.

In a statement shared with ch-aviation, American Airlines expressed disappointment with ASTA’s complaint and what it labelled the organisation's "ongoing campaign to misrepresent American’s commitment to delivering a modern retailing experience for customers". "New Distribution Capability (NDC) is about expanding customer options and improving transparency — goals that are demonstrably good for competition. ASTA does not even try to argue otherwise."

"NDC is not some unproven technology. Many of the biggest names in travel distribution have been using NDC for years. Last year, one out of every three travel agency bookings on American have been made using NDC connections. All of the largest online travel agencies have been connected to American for years.

"American has made huge investments to make travel agencies’ transition to NDC easier. We are the only carrier that has connected our NDC content to all three global distribution systems - work that was done explicitly at the request of our travel agency partners. While some travel agencies have not yet connected, we have not withheld any information that would discourage or prevent comparison shopping. All of our fares remain viewable over both NDC and traditional travel agency channels," the airline stated.