Articles tagged “gds”

Lufthansa sees Condor as a good fit for its existing business. The question is would Thomas Cook split up its airline, and would competition regulators allow it?

The battle over airline distribution costs has been fought from boardrooms to courtrooms to the press. Though each airline is in a unique position, we examine the industry-wide data to take a cold look at the facts as best as possible.

Gordon Wilson, the CEO of Travelport, said in an interview that he sees India as one of the drivers of its long-term growth. That's plausible, but not assured. Private equity should take the company private to shield it from quarterly earnings pressure, and allow it to invest properly to make the most of its varied opportunities.

Airline distribution needs to change to keep up with the modern economy. Its tech is evolving, but it takes time to turn around such a large and complex ship. Will changes come fast enough to avoid outside disruption?

Sabre CEO Sean Menke is right when he says consumers want the ability to comparison shop before they make travel plans. But his ideas about making airline fees more complicated — and lucrative — might not be so popular.

Travelport has worked hard over the last few years to develop new airline merchandising and travel payments solutions on a global level. Next comes the challenge of driving wider adoption in the marketplace.

Think of travel tech giant Sabre as being like an orchestra. CEO Sean Menke has been like a conductor replacing lead players and changing the tune. So far, investors like what they hear.

The travel technology giant has bowed to investor and airline demands for a management team more focused on software solutions that help with the retailing, distribution, and fulfillment of travel as an end-to-end journey, not just siloed by function.

The global distribution systems are each pushing forward in their own unique way. By investing like technology companies in flexible distribution and payment technologies, they hope to provide a better value proposition to travel partners that are keen to cut out the middleman. Decades of bad blood between the two, however, still linger over the conversation.

IATA’s New Distribution Capability appears to finally be gaining traction in corporate travel. Airlines want it to succeed as much as travel management companies, which will have access to a greater amount of content like seat upgrades and other ancillary products.