Does American Airlines continue its war on Travel Agencies?

It’s a new year and Conner Ann Waterman and I have new predictions!
On Wednesday, we are going to release the first episode of 2024 where we discuss a wide range of topics and predictions for the travel world.
But this clip below focuses on one company that has been making the corporate travel world’s collective life harder over the last year.Enter, American Airlines.
American has undergone what feels like a war on travel agencies as they switch distribution strategies.
For the longest time, customers could shop directly on American’s website, through Concur, or an OTA like Expedia and get the same price on a flight. For years, “content agreements,” kept pricing the same across the board.
However, a few years ago, IATA and the airlines joined forces to develop a new standard of distributing/selling fares called NDC.
We won’t get into the technical stuff here, but you can think of NDC as a direct connection.
While the airlines will tell you their push towards NDC is because they want more control over how they “retail” their fares, let’s be honest…
The push towards NDC is about money.
When you buy a fare on Expedia or 3rd party sites, the airline has to pay fees to the GDS.
NDC has different commercial agreements and will help the airlines not pay as much to the GDS companies like Sabre and Amadeus while in theory providing more revenue opportunities.
Now, let’s talk about the current state of everything.
Platforms like Concur or popular OTAs often do not have a direct or NDC connection with American, which means you can often see different prices on American’s website than you would on popular legacy booking tools.
For much of 2023, American just held back some basic economy fares from the GDS - not a big deal for most corporate travelers, as they avoid basic economy like the plague.
However, American has signaled they are going to continue this strategy in 2024.
In our world, we have had some customers avoid destinations that were American hubs, citing they don’t want to deal with the hassle.
The whole situation makes it more difficult for travelers, as different sites can have different fares and flights available.
What do you think?
Will American continue its strategy?
Will other airlines follow?