After years of ceding the upper hand in online travel to booking sites like Kayak and Orbitz, American Airlines is about to fight back. According to the CEO of a competing travel site, American Airlines is about to pull its airline listings out of Kayak and is considering doing the same with Orbitz. If it does so, other airlines such as Continental and Northwest may follow suit.

Airlines don’t like the booking sites because they have to pay them a referral fee for every ticket they sell, as opposed to capturing the full fare when travelers book on their individual sites. Even though that only amounts to a few dollars per ticket, every dollar counts to the troubled airlines—especially now with fuel prices going sky-high and the consumer spending going down.

American Airlines has a particular beef with Kayak because it tends to show AA flights through its partnership with Orbitz instead of directly from American. That means American has to pay a double tax, once to Kayak and once to Orbitz. (The deal between Kayak and Orbitz, charges the competing CEO, was meant to drive up traffic numbers on Kayak as it was potentially seeking an IPO prior to raising $200 million instead last December).

The decision to sever ties with Kayak supposedly has already been made. The only question is whether Orbitz can salvage its relationship with the airline. This should strengthen competing travel sites, especially newer ones that link directly to the airlines like Mobissimo and Yapta.

Michael wrote about rumors of a Google/ Skype hookup April 1, a deal that would make a lot of sense. One that doesn’t are rumors that Google may be getting ready to bid for travel giant Expedia.

Expedia shares were up over 9% Tuesday and a further 1% Wednesday based on the rumors (chart above) for a market cap of $7.18 billion. Expedia stock is still down approx. 30% from its October 2007 peak.

Rick Aristotle Munarriz at Motley Fool makes a lot of sense:

I don’t put a lot of weight behind the pursuit of Expedia. I may have suggested last month that Expedia would look good on the arm of another search engine star, but that is mostly because of the attraction of Expedia’s Web 2.0 properties like TripAdvisor.com….As the paid-search leader, Google relies on travel portals like Priceline, Travelocity, and Orbitz Worldwide, to bid for placement on its travel-related search results. Things could get hairy if Google snaps up Expedia. Sleeping with the enemy is one thing. Paying for its fare and making a rival stronger in the process, is another…

Now that Google has the DoubleClick acquisition out of the way, welcome back to Google takeover silly season. Expect to see lots of left field speculation in the coming months as the market tries to work out where Google will next park some of its bulging cash reserves.

Orbitz TLC Traveler Update is a new service from well known online travel company Orbitz – it provides quick, P2P generated travel reports. That means travelers can get information on delays, cancellations, weather and other issues way before official announcements are made.

Traveler Update starts with the basics; users have access to TSA wait times, weather information, traffic (pulled from Google Maps), and general information including WiFi access and parking details. Where the service is trying to be different is with the remaining feature: user generated advice.

People using any airport in the United States are encouraged to submit airport advice to the site from the airport itself. Tips can be made anonymously or by registered Orbitz members, and the service also includes a mobile version for easy access via cell phone.

Like any service that relies in user generated content, it’s only ever as good as the number of users contributing to it; the service went live Monday so it’s not extensive yet, but it is already seeing contributions from airport hotspots. Earlier today there were delays at Chicago O’Hare Airport and there were several pages of user advice direct from the airport, including details of flight delays and cancellations, where Taxi’s were readily available, security delays and other information that someone heading for the airport, or at the airport might find useful.

It’s a good idea, and if it builds user numbers it will become an even better service. Worth a look the next time you are flying in the United States.