American Airlines has ceased selling duty free merchandise on international flights after a disagreement with its inflight retail partner Duty Free Air and Ship Supply (DFASS).
The carrier abruptly ended the service on Friday after what it describes as “a contractual disagreement between American Airlines and DFASS, the company that had handled our onboard duty free sales.”
“Duty free sales will continue on select international US Airways flights until further notice, and there is duty free shopping available at many of the international airports we serve,” American said in a statement.
Delta Air Lines ended its relationship with DFASS last year due to a disagreement over how the program was run.
Miami based DFASS operates duty free concessions in several airports in the US, the Caribbean and Latin America and yesterday announced South Korean hotel and duty-free operator Hotel Shilla Co was buying 44% of its stock for $105 million.
Hotel Shilla, a unit of Samsung Group, has an option to buy an additional 36% in five years in what a Hotel Shilla spokesman described as ‘a de facto takeover deal.’
It is unclear whether this development had any influence on the contractual disagreement with American.
