Alamo and National file lawsuit against Orbitz

Alamo and National, two major car rental companies that are part of the Vanguard group, have filed lawsuits against Orbitz, a popular travel website. The car hire giants claim that Orbitz broke a contractual agreement on rental listings, after Orbitz “inappropriately demanded” a $1.5 million fee from Alamo and National. Both car hire companies decided not to pay the fee, which then led Orbitz to remove all rental listings associated with Alamo and National from the main area of its site. This means that while clients are still able to book vehicles through these companies, accessing their listings usually takes an extra click, or requires the client to scroll down the page.

As part of the lawsuit, Vanguard has claimed that the change to the Orbitz booking site means that Alamo alone will likely lose around $27 million in revenue, before the end of the year. Vanguard did not, however, confirm how much National Car Rental stood to lose. Orbitz has fired back, by telling journalists that Vanguard’s claims were “baseless,” and noted that the two car hire companies are simply “upset with the way that the site sorts its search results,” wanting instead to “detract” from reservations gained by its competitors. Orbitz also confirmed that it will “vigorously defend” its position and business approach.

Vanguard hopes to convince a judge to examine the issue and require Orbitz to reorganize its search results, while also compelling the online travel company to pay compensation for legal fees as well as for punitive damages.

www.alamo.com