American Airlines has reached a secret settlement with an online travel agent it had accused of using ‘notorious and brazen’ methods to sell its tickets using unauthorized hacks like hidden city ticketing.
The Dallas Fort Worth-based airline filed the lawsuit against the popular flight search website Kiwi.com last August in an attempt to ban the travel agency from selling its flights.
American Airlines previously had a working relationship with Kiwi.com but tried to stop the Czech-based website from selling its tickets after accusing it of using ‘explicitly forbidden’ methods to find cheaper flight deals than its rivals.
Kiwi.com had boasted about its various ‘travel hacks’, and although the website never explicitly mentioned it, American Airlines claimed one of these hacks is the controversial method of booking hidden city ticketing.
Hidden city ticketing is the practice of buying a ticket to a destination which involves a stopover with the intention of ending your journey at the stopover destination.
Because of how airline inventory is sold, buying a direct flight to your destination is often more expensive than buying a connecting flight and simply discarding the final segment, but it’s a travel hack that airlines hate.
In its 2023 lawsuit, American Airlines said that it had ordered Kiwi.com to stop breaking its rules, but the travel agency allegedly continued to sell tickets that it isn’t authorized to sell, using dubious methods to get hold of the tickets without AA’s permission.
One method that Kiwi.com uses is a technique called ‘screen scraping’ in which Kiwi simply searches for flights via the AA.com website and then uses fictitious email addresses to book tickets on behalf of their customer.
Kiwi.com became an authorized seller of AA’s tickets in 2016, but the airline ended up having to warn the website about its ‘abusive’ sales activities. American Airlines ended its contract with Kiwi.com in 2020.
In a filing in a Texas court, American Airlines said it had now reached a “confidential settlement agreement resolving the underlying issues”. The airline said it had agreed that all the claims against Kiwi.com would be dismissed with prejudice, which means AA can’t file a similar case against the website in the future.
Last month, European low-cost carrier Ryanair struck a deal with Kiwi.com to allow the website to officially sell its tickets after only recently accusing Kiwi.com of being the “no.1 pirate” for “scams and overcharges”.
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