American Airlines Is Shaking Up Corporate Travel Booking: Here’s Why
Photo Credit: American Airlines is pushing the new fares so customers can avoid "subpar booking and travel management experiences with limited access to fares and packages." Unsplash / Miguel Angel Sanz
Skift Take
From April, the airline will stop selling almost half its airfares through traditional channels, instead selling them exclusively through its own website and so-called New Distribution Capability-powered channels. The shakeup mostly impacts travel agencies and corporations that fly American for business. We explain.
With just one month to go, there’s a lot of noise about American Airlines’ decision to hold back 40 percent of its fares, mostly for business travel, for so-called New Distribution Capability-powered channels and direct channels, such as its own website.
To recap: New Distribution Capability is a technology standard developed by the International Air Transport Association. The idea is to give airlines more control over their airfares, rather than rely on global distribution systems.
Traditionally, these global distribution systems (namely Sabre, Amadeus and Travelport) act as middlemen who pass on airline information that travel agents and other retailers use to provide booking services to customers.
So What Changes?From April, American is pulling about 40 percent of its content that is transmitted by Edifact (Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce, and Transport) — a protocol that pre-dates the internet, and one that the gl
