Limited access to fares and inventory from Brazilian airlines Gol and Tam has
frustrated corporate travel agencies and buyers for years. Gol last week announced
expanded participation with the global distribution system providers, but a Gol representative nevertheless indicated that "there is no GDS provider with Gol's full content."
"All three [new agreements] were expanded," according to the spokesperson. "With Sabre, Gol expanded the geographical area of distribution as well as the available content and Sabre's products in use. With Amadeus, Gol recently increased connectivity, enabling more accurate information and updates regarding the inventory hosted on Navitaire/New Skies. With Travelport, Gol contracted two GDS products to allow alliances and e-ticket issuing by other partner airlines." Gol also works with Japan's Axess.
According to an Amadeus official, "our 'extended' agreement with Gol responds to the carrier's request to be ticketed in some markets other than Brazil. Through the agreement, Gol can select the markets in which Amadeus travel agency subscribers will be able to issue Gol's (and Gol's partners') electronic tickets. Gol will remain 'ticketless' in Brazil. This is an optional feature that falls under the framework of Amadeus' and Gol's distribution agreement, which has been in place since 2005."
"Our GDS content agreement with Gol remains unchanged. Gol has been bookable through Travelport since 2006," according to a Travelport official.
Sabre "previously had a regional distribution agreement with Gol but the new one provides full Gol content globally," according to a Sabre representative. "Gol also upgraded its connectivity level with us."
HRG, Sabre and other distributors have created workarounds to access the broader set of Gol's content.
"The domestic content from Gol and Tam haven't been in any GDS for the last several years," Sabre Travel Network senior vice president of the Americas Jay Jones said during an August interview. "Multi-source solves that. Using our MySabre platform we have developed capabilities to access the content we need from those carriers in the Brazilian market directly and pull it right into the display. [The MySabre Plus solution] is on agency desktops in Brazil today, functioning. It pulls back the information and integrates it into the display and agents can book it, ticket it and fulfill it all within the MySabre workflow. It's in English and Portuguese. We feel comfortable that, if need be, there's a requirement for access to content in other markets we would look at that on a case-by-case basis and decide."
