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Booking Engine Fiascos: Kayak Owning the AA Saga Narrative

August 1, 2008 at 3:05 PM | 0 Comments

Today is day one of No-AA-Fares-on-Kayak, and the travel search aggregator has issued a statement that finally clarifies why you won't be seeing American Airlines' fare info on the site anymore. (You'll still be able to check the carrier's schedules, but to find the actual cost of those flights, you'll have to manually check another site.)

Here's Kayak's explanation:

American asked us to suppress search results from online travel agency partners as a condition to displaying their fares on Kayak.com and SideStep.com. We remain committed to providing a comprehensive and objective display to our users.

Therefore, Kayak.com and SideStep.com are displaying schedules only (not prices) for American Airlines flights.

We shouldn't have to tell you that American has yet to release its own version of events--except of course for a brief statement the carrier sent to Budget Travel. Where did Kayak release its statement? Its own blog, natch.

Related Stories:
· Kayak Statement on American Airlines [Official Site]
· Trying to Parse the Kayak-AA Drama [Jaunted]