Articles tagged “global distribution systems”

Sabre CEO Sean Menke is right to highlight the progress his business has made during the three years since he took the top job. He's also right to insist the company needs to invest more in tech to keep up with the travel industry's pace of digital change. But will investors be patient?

A federal judge heard closing arguments in the U.S. government's antitrust suit to block Sabre's acquisition of Farelogix. Inside the courtroom, Judge Leonard Stark's comments didn't show his hand. The case seems a close call.

It's notable that we had a much easier time finding experts who supported Sabre's proposed merger of Farelogix than opponents. But this court case will be decided on legal nuances, and its outcome is impossible to predict. We pity the judge who has to endure this crash course in airline technology and distribution.

Airlines have invested in making many of their offerings increasingly data-driven in recent years. Yet they haven’t taken the same approach to schedules, one of their preeminent products.

To paraphrase Sabre executives, airlines in North America are too fat and happy to be bothered to mimic the experiments with direct distribution happening in Europe. They're probably calling that right.

New deals mean that offline and online travel agencies will more quickly and commonly see richly descriptive details about what any given airfare includes, such as facts about legroom and photos of premium class seats. But don't hold your breath in anticipation. Travel sellers have to wait another five years before next-gen selling will become the norm for agents.

Many airline executives insist that their so-called New Distribution Capability, or new method of sharing data for selling tickets, will hit a major target next year. But industry insiders say the target will be missed. To cope in the meantime, several airlines will expand the marketing for bundled fares under a confusing array of brand names.

A federal appeals court has asked for a partial do-over in antitrust litigation between US Airways and travel tech firm Sabre. After more than eight years and millions of dollars in expenses, the case has partly been reset to square one. Remarkable.

New data from China's travel tech giant TravelSky shows that the country's pace of air travel growth slowed in the first half of the year. But the country remained the fastest-growing region in the world in terms of aviation and traveling.

When it comes to implementing and adopting the New Distribution Capability standards for airline retailing, there needs to be a strong focus on enabling scalability, across the entire retailing, distribution, and fulfillment process.