Travelport and British Airways/Iberia agreed to a framework for surcharge-free airfares, adopting the private channel concept for travel agency users that sacrifice GDS incentives. It wasn’t unexpected, but the agreement serves as a letdown for some U.K. travel agency leaders who were hoping the market’s top GDS would fight the private-channel construct. Amadeus and Sabre had…
Twelve years since Congress passed it, the Real ID Act is getting real. Two months before the new federal security rules take effect at U.S. airports, travel managers are finding lots of confusion. That’s why travel management companies are encouraging clients to spread the message about the potential impact. Conceived after 9/11 as a way…
British Airways and Iberia agreed to remove their global distribution system surcharge for users of Expedia and clients of its Egencia corporate travel arm, according to an Egencia spokesperson. “As part of a wider Expedia/Egencia agreement reached by Expedia Inc. and IAG (BA and Iberia), travelers booking from EMEA and Asia Pacific have been surcharge-free…
Sabre CEO Sean Menke confirmed what many suspected. The IAG private channel option for travel agencies caught up in reworked economics between airlines and GDSs is about foregoing GDS incentives. Parent of British Airways and Iberia, IAG created “two buckets for the agency community,” Menke explained during the Wednesday Bernstein Technology Summit. He called them the “haves…
Google revealed plans to shut down on April 10, 2018 the API for a light version of its shopping and faring service. Acquired by Google half-a-dozen years ago, ITA Software’s advanced pricing and shopping capabilities had become a go-to alternative to similar global distribution system functionality. Its standard QPX product is used by a number of…
Travelport expects most bookings on British Airways and Ibera to be subject to the carriers’ new private channel option. That implies lower GDS incentive income for travel management companies. Travelport president and CEO Gordon Wilson on Thursday morning told investors that while negotiations were ongoing, “We think a large majority of our business with International Airlines Group…
Announcing financial results today for the first nine months of this year, Lufthansa Group executives offered an update on the company’s distribution and digitization strategies. In short, it will be some time before the split from traditional distribution practices bears fruit. As it moves to a Datalex-provided platform, Lufthansa Group carrier Swiss is expected next year…
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