Thought-provoking. I think the airlines' real agenda goes something like this:

1) use Orbitz to put the squeeze on both online and offline channels that want commissions, training consumers that they must use particular sites if they want to avoid unwelcome fees, and then:
2) let Orbitz fall apart gradually, since the major airlines have never really liked having price comparisons so readily available to consumers. Too empowering.

Bank ATMs might be a good comparison. In years before 1996 they pushed consumers to the ATM networks, which were nearly free. During that time the banks saved huge amounts from branch closures, teller job eliminations and mergers. That was the cost-cutting phase (where we are now with the airlines)

Then, with consumer habits changed, they artificially "dismantled" the network, introducing a whole pile of onerous fees, even though their own costs were actually going down. The airline equivalent of this behavior would be to pull out of Orbitz and make the only fee-free bookings be on their own sites. Consumers would have to choose between price comparisons and fee-less bookings, rather than getting both. There may even be programmer-fights between the 'bots and the airline sites trying to deny access to data.

Delta, with its ill-fated move to try to impose a $10 fee for non-Web bookings, and Northwest more recently have tipped the hand a bit. Commission costs are the supposed target, but I think the real one is multi-airline price-comparison venues, whether human or on the Web.