I attended the Innovation in Airline Distribution 2012 Conference right here in my home city of Miami. The conference organizers did an admirable job of pulling together a nice balance of the provocative and the educational. I, of course, was part of the educational track. Read More »

December 1, 2011Dear Sabre:

We read with interest the November 29 article in The Beat where [Sabre Travel Network president] Greg Webb stated, "Corporations and agencies have told me it's a must-have to be able to display all content from all carriers flying a certain route in an easily understandable way." He continued, "I can't show Air Canada one way, WestJet another way and United a third way because it becomes an unusable user experience."

With all due respect, if it was ever true that it Read More »

It’s no secret that I am often quite critical of the general state of GDS innovation--specifically, the lack of it. And, not surprisingly, believe I am correct in that general assessment. However, when I see something that stands out from the crowd, it's worth sending out kudos, and the mobile team at Sabre deserves one. Read More »

"Rearden Aims to Limit Choice." Whoa. When I read that Beat headline, it sounded like a bad thing. Don't take away my choice! But it’s kind of like saying Amazon limits choice because it offers me recommendations when I log in. This "limited choice" is actually just personalization, which I think is a very good thing! Read More »

Okay, okay. The last thing I wanted to do today was to write a blog post. I’ve been in 5 different cities, eaten at least 5 meals on airplanes, lost my iPhone in NYC this week, and now I’ve got a leak in my house. I was ready for some R&R. Then I read this blog post at The Beat.travel. Just fantastic. Look, I know I’m sounding like a broken record here, but I’m always in favor of honest, open debate, but it’s got to be honest. For the reasons stated above, clearly I’m not it the best of mood Read More »

You just gotta check this out. Over the past couple of days I have read a few Beat articles on which--for as much as I would like to just relax on a beautiful Sunday morning with my Metamucil, or Muesli, or whatever it is us "experienced" guys are supposed to take to keep us feeling spry--I simply must comment. Read More »

I just returned from the Travel Distribution Summit Europe 2011, which was attended by some of the biggest, coolest companies—Google, Facebook, Foursquare and… Farelogix (insert wry smiley face emoticon here). Read More »

The Department of Transportation is delaying any decision to force airlines to utilize the GDS-mandated methodology for selling and displaying ancillary services. They are delaying their decision because they "lack additional information about costs, benefits and consequences" of requiring carriers to provide that information to the GDSs. It's easy to understand why DOT has more questions than answers. We can just look at some of the recent comments by industry brass. Airlines now support a stan Read More »

Dear Sabre,

I know many people pit us as enemies. But I consider us more like longstanding colleagues who often disagree, but still show up the next day for a game of checkers. OK maybe we’re unlikely to sit and play checkers… but my point is, and I hope you’d agree that, throughout our ups and downs, we have managed to handle our disagreements with professionalism and respect as relates to publicized debates. We have even ended up as compadres on some industry issues! Read More »

Remember the good ol' days of air travel? You know, back in 1995 when things were easy. We didn't have to deal with all these ancillary fees - we could just check our bag and get a delicious Saran-wrapped piece of "chicken," and all for "free." Everything was included and CHEAPER! Remember that? Read More »