Worldspan

has notified US Airways that on November 15th it will remove the carrier from its global distribution system if US Airways does not agree to provide all inventory to Worldspan as it has Galileo

and Sabre

.
Unlike those two GDS competitors, Worldspan is not offering US Airways a price break in return.

“We think Worldspan is being very consumer-unfriendly, but we expect to work it out,” said B. Ben Baldanza, US Airways senior vice president of marketing and planning. Baldanza said Worldspan`s ultimatum is based on what he called “vague” language in its airline-GDS participation agreement that “we don`t believe they interpreted properly. We don`t believe they have a right to this for free.”
“It`s unfortunate for Worldspan agencies to be caught in the middle,” added US Airways` vice president of sales Steve Tracas.

Worldspan is owned by American, Delta and Northwest airlines; Galileo and Sabre have no airline ownership. “We take note of the fact Worldspan is the only airline-controlled GDS, but I hope that has nothing to do with this,” said Baldanza.

Addressing the possibility of being pulled from Web sites that rely on Worldspan-such as Expedia, Orbitz and Priceline-Baldanza said US Airways expects to connect directly to Orbitz by year-end and to Expedia “at some point.”

US Airways officials said they had approached Worldspan with the same terms agreed with Sabre, and added that it is “too premature” to assess the impact on those arrangements from the latest Worldspan move.

“We think Worldspan`s customers will want Worldspan to have full access,” said Baldanza.

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