American Airlines settles case against Kayak

Details and terms of the agreement were confidential, said Tim Smith, an American spokesman. Kayak representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

Kayak compiles information from other travel sites to let users compare prices of different airlines. It doesn't sell the tickets; it makes money from advertising while directing consumers to other sites such as Orbitz for the purchases, which reduces the airlines' revenue from sale of the ticket.

American sued Kayak Software Corp., which also owns the SideStep travel search engine, in state court in Fort Worth in August. It charged that Kayak broke an agreement by displaying the airline's fares through other parties.

Norwalk, Conn.-based Kayak then pulled American's listings, leaving the search engine without any listings of flights on the nation's biggest airline.

American, a unit of AMR Corp., notified its frequent fliers about the settlement this week.