New York – What is American Airlines senior vice president of global sales Alison Taylor cheerful about? What keeps her up at night? The answer to both questions is the same: the future state of AA’s GDS relationships. Speaking here last week at a World Travel Inc. event, Taylor reiterated AA’s stance that NDC is not about circumventing… Read More »
Carlson Wagonlit Travel joined rivals Amex GBT and HRG in creating a deal to avoid the IAG carriers’ GDS surcharge. CWT would use “participating GDSs.” It did not name the lone participating GDS, Amadeus, in its press statement. CWT said very little about the New Distribution Capability, posting the following in a client Q&A: “What agreement is in place between… Read More »
The new, Amadeus-endorsed model for airline distribution with International Airlines Group may or may not take hold among more travel management companies or even other GDSs. For now, it’s constructive to review the role of IATA’s New Distribution Capability. When IAG announced a GDS surcharge in May, NDC was the industry’s ticket to fee-free British Airways and Iberia… Read More »
There are three weeks to go before a surcharge takes effect on global distribution system bookings with British Airways and Iberia. Big travel management companies are revealing that they’re avoiding the fee on bookings through Amadeus thanks to the GDS company’s agreements with the airlines. Following a related Hogg Robinson Group announcement last week, American Express Global Business Travel… Read More »
Chrome River is showing clients a new way for sales and finance to correlate T&E spending with customer relationship management info. The idea is to optimize how and where to allocate travel dollars, based on the revenue-generating potential of customer visits. Pulling CRM data into travel decision-making is not a new concept. Chrome River aims to complete the… Read More »
Airbnb inventory is coming to corporate booking channels. Concur and Flight Centre this summer went public with their plans. Amadeus is considering if and how to link its booking tool. Airbnb’s self-reported data shows rapid growth even before these integrations. Anecdotal reports indicate increased corporate acceptance. Concur in July said “in the coming months” it would integrate Airbnb… Read More »
Travel management sources said British Airways parent IAG should go back to the drawing board on recently discussed alternatives to its surcharge program, due to take effect Nov. 1. An IAG official offered no comment on news that the firm is in the market talking to travel management companies about an incentive program not unlike the one described… Read More »
Sabre’s new leadership is remaking the company. At the start of this month, they attributed a decision to lay off approximately 900 people to a desire to become faster and more efficient. They’re attacking overhead. They’re streamlining products in the division housing airline reservations and related systems. Sometimes stocks go up on news about layoffs. Not this time.… Read More »
Return on investment for particular business trips is elusive. Amadeus is hoping to address that with new integration between its cytric booking tool and Salesforce. Amadeus expects cytric to be available on the Salesforce AppExchange by early fourth quarter, meaning clients can install its booking capabilities into the Salesforce mobile app. The integration will attach Salesforce CRM’s “opportunities”… Read More »
[UPDATE, June 29, 2017: Revises Travelport information.] Timing on global distribution system readiness to hook up New Distribution Capability connections for full functionality remains a mystery. Sabre, for one, has committed to achieving that goal with American Airlines. When GDSs do bring in the highest-level NDC functionality of, say, American Airlines, what will that mean for travel management… Read More »