As airlines began developing the New Distribution Capability more than a decade ago, they needed a way to communicate flight changes and other events to parties including travel agencies. Global distribution systems have queues for schedule adjustments and the like that agencies routinely deal with; NDC is different because the systems of record are run…
How would the world be different had you never lived? Countless movies and books explore this theme, but a travel tech startup? Spotnana has surreally erased co-founder and former CTO Shikhar Agarwal from its blog and, aside from a short statement sent in response to a query, its corporate history. Reached Tuesday, Agarwal said he…
Spotnana’s founding CEO, Sarosh Waghmar, announced Monday that he would step into the chief product officer role and share the chairmanship with executive chair Steve Singh, whom the company named CEO. It’s a “short-term” assignment, Singh said Tuesday during a live interview on LinkedIn in which he also discussed his “perfect trip” vision, AI and…
Direct Travel’s acquisition by investors led by Steve Singh is a bold move that comes with risks. Spotnana, in particular, already faced sticking points on the economics of collaboration with travel management companies. One of the largest TMCs familiar with those issues has called the Direct Travel buy a game changer. “They have moved, from…
About 34 percent of 326 travel buyers polled last month by GBTA said their companies had begun implementing NDC-enabled channels, with varying degrees of success, up from 18 percent a year earlier. But half of respondents said they had not started to implement NDC — essentially unchanged from polls in April and October last year….
It’s not hard to identify potential winners from American Express Global Business Travel’s proposed deal to acquire CWT, besides GBT itself, starting with the largest remaining competitors. Nor is it hard to see some of the losers, firstly global companies that manage travel and would have one fewer option next time they look for a…
In a Jan. 29 Business Travel News column, SAP Concur Travel president Charlie Sultan predicted that distribution changes would “disrupt” travel management company revenue streams and combine with tech investment pressures to prompt “further TMC consolidation.” He didn’t cover Concur’s role. Parent SAP considered buying CWT but decided against it last week, according to sources…
End of content
End of content
