IATA claims "major victory" on PaxIS

Dutch court rules against Travelport 

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) claimed a "major court victory" over Travelport on its controversial PaxIS product.

The Amsterdam District Court refused earlier this month to grant the GDS an injunction to stop IATA using airline information, which Travelport had in its databases, for its Passenger Intelligence Services (PaxIS).

The decision has only just been made public.

Giovanni Bisignani, IATA's director general and ceo, said: "IATA has won an important legal battle to preserve competition for airline data transaction products.

"The Dutch court decision vindicates the rights of airlines to earn profits from commercialising their data."

Travelport said it was disappointed by the decision at the preliminary hearing.

The Business Travel Coalition (BTC), which has campaigned against PaxIS, said the court ruling was on the procedure of the Travelport case, not on its merits.

Travelport, which owns two major GDSs Galileo and Worldspan which have contracts with many airlines, began its case against IATA and PaxIS in August.

PaxIS is an airline business intelligence product marketed by IATA, which uses in part data collected through its billing and settlement plans (BSP).

Some of this is stored by third parties including GDS.

IATA sells this data to airlines which can use if for commercial purposes.

In its statement on the case, IATA whose members includes most of the world's major carriers, said: "Travelport argued that the EC database directive gave it the right to control the use of data that it retrieves from its database and transmits to IATA's BSP settlement systems on behalf of its airline clients. 

"The 1 October decision of the Amsterdam District Court (Netherlands), denied Travelport's application, ruling in favour of IATA on almost every significant issue."

Mr Bisignani added: "This decision brings clarity and common sense to the evolving and complex interplay between the EC database directive and principles of EC competition law.

"We are pleased that we can continue to provide the airlines with a cost-effective and competitive data product that supports critical decision-making in their businesses."

Travelport said "IATA's use of this data, without Travelport's express consent, is an infringement of both Dutch and European database legislation." 

Tad Ostrowski, Travelport GDS's general counsel, said: "It is important to understand this was only a preliminary hearing and not a final decision.

"We remain confident of our position that IATA should not be using this data without our consent and we are now discussing with our legal advisers taking the case forward to a further hearing where the Dutch court will have a better opportunity to understand the issues."

Another leading GDS, Amadeus won a court case against IATA on PaxIS in May when the International Chamber of Commerce Court of Arbitration said the use of the data by PaxIS "constitutes a breach of its contractual agreements with Amadeus and also infringes Amadeus' rights under the EU Database Directive." 

The Madrid-based GDS said the court had "ordered IATA not to use any ticketing information transmitted by Amadeus for the purpose of developing, marketing and selling PaxIS, or any other similar reports, or for any purpose, except for the orderly operation of the Billing and Settlement Plans.

"This decision fully supports the position that Amadeus has consistently taken, that the conduct of IATA, in using Amadeus' ticketing information in its PaxIS product, infringes Amadeus' rights."

At the time, IATA said declined to comment on the specific case but said it always complied with court rulings.

A third leading GDS, Sabre also has a case pending against IATA on PaxIS due to be heard in Canada.

www.iata.org   www.travelport.com   www.amadeus.com   www.sabre.com