Airline Direct Distribution
Sept. 8, 2016
The Company Dime welcomes expert guests including American Airlines managing director for distribution and data commercialization Cory Garner, ARC president and CEO Mike Premo, WestRock corporate travel manager Karen Hatch and World Travel Inc. president Dee Runyan to decode the status quo on airline direct booking in business travel.
See the slides below. Here’s info about upcoming episodes.
Thanks again to our speakers and attendees!
Airlines have been selling their own seats since time immemorial. Four decades ago, indirect distribution via travel agencies and reservations system technology took off.
Two decades ago, the Internet brought us both supplier websites and online travel agencies. Yet, the epic distribution showdowns that resulted haven’t toppled the industry’s framework for business travel distribution.
Nowadays, at least two serious efforts that support non-GDS distribution are underway. Lufthansa’s GDS distribution fee and Concur’s TripLink are programs that specifically impact business travel. Airlines are applying GDS bypass more broadly as well, such as AA’s NDC-compliant, Farelogix-provided direct connection with Priceline.
In the past we saw various airline programs fail to disrupt distribution. We saw would-be GDS competitors G2 SwitchWorks and ITA Software go by the wayside.
Is it for real now? Where’s it all going? How can business travel professionals prepare?
We discuss that and more in our beta Teleconference.