American Airlines has inked a 5-year deal with ticket-distribution firm Worldspan, which the airline contends will save it money.
Under the new contract, Worldspan will electronically process ticket orders from travel agents. David Cush, American's senior vice president for global sales, said in a statement that the deal "achieves American's important business objective of decreasing our distribution costs, a critical factor for American going forward as we continue to drive towards more efficient operations throughout our business."
The airline would not comment on how much money it would save under the new contract.
But reducing ticket distribution costs has been a major cost-cutting focus for several years.
American continues to feud with another ticket distribution company, Southlake-based Sabre Holdings.
The airline is upset that Sabre plans to share its scheduling data with another firm, Amadeus. American considers that information proprietary.
"We're still looking into that situation," said American spokesman Billy Sanez.
Shares of AMR Corp., American's parent (ticker: AMR), dipped 99 cents, or about 4 percent, to close at $26.11 in trading Thursday.
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