Consumers still happy with online travel agents

Inside the world of online airline ticket sales there's big trouble, with American in a dispute with some online travel agencies (think Orbitz) and the global distribution systems that serve both the online and traditional travel agencies. American says it has a better way to offer would-be customers shopping for tickets and other services. But many consumers say they like the online services just fine, finding greater satisfaction with them than they do with many other services -- including airlines themselves. Read more about that at this link.

In the meantime, though, federal regulators warned one of the big distribution systems, Sabre Holdings, and four online agencies that they can't bias their displays of flights and fares against American .... it's against federal regulations that prohibit bias, rules that, in fact, help make the sites more popular with consumers. Here's more on that issue.