You've probably never thought about buying a ticket for Southwest Airlines on American Airlines' Web site.  But in a Tarrant County district courtroom last week, lawyers for FareChase, a New York software firm, proved that you could do just that.

American Airlines is suing FareChase for using a software program that surveys airline Web sites and aggregates the fare and schedule information on the FareChase site. American says FareChase is taking its private property.

During a temporary injunction hearing Thursday, AA.com's managing director, Scott Hayden, testified that his company would never use another Web site's content without its permission and would stop immediately if it learned that American did not have permission. Hayden also said that American would not display another site's content with an American frame around it.

But on cross-examination by FareChase attorney Morgan Tovey, Hayden was shown evidence that American does that with its corporate Web site. On AMR.com's press room is a link to a popular Internet search engine, Google.com. Tovey asked a courtroom technician to use that search to locate Southwest.com.

"We're looking at something rather odd," Hayden said as the Web site was projected in the courtroom.

The odd thing the courtroom was looking at was Southwest's Web site, framed by AMR's logo with a large American Airlines plane at the top of the page.  The sight of the American Airlines plane looming over a smaller Southwest plane elicited chuckles from the courtroom gallery.

Tovey then asked Hayden if it would be possible to buy a Southwest Airlines ticket from the site, and Hayden reluctantly responded that it would be.

A check of AMR's press-room Web site Friday revealed a change. Now, Southwest's site launches into a separate window unframed by American.