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Posted Aug 20, 2010
Air France-KLM U.S. vice president and general manager Christine Ourmières recently updated us on corporate contracting among SkyTeam's joint venture partners (including Delta). I also asked her about a few distribution topics. Joint alliance-GDS negotiations? Don't hold your breath. Revised agency compensation programs for Delta's TMC clients? There were some questions at first, but now everything is cool, according to Ourmières.
Posted Mar 10, 2010
When I think about the future of the travel industry, three words come to mind: Cyborg Travel Agents. For that reason and many, many others, I am not the senior vice president of information services & CIO here at Travel and Transport. The talented and charming Mike Kubasik holds that position, and recently I sat down with him to get a more realistic, less “Jetsons” influenced idea of where the current technological trends within the travel industry stand.
Posted Mar 8, 2010
Posted Jan 29, 2010
Posted Jul 21, 2009
Here are some comments by UAL Corp. executives, from their second-quarter financial conference call this afternoon, about distribution and risk ...
Posted Jul 18, 2009
Here's the full text of United's response to members of Congress, dated July 17 and signed by senior vice president of worldwide sales and distribution Jeff Foland ...
Posted Jul 18, 2009
I have emailed a United spokeswoman to confirm but according to a tweet by American Society of Travel Agents CEO Bill Maloney, United Airlines "told Congress last night that they would delay 60 days, as requested, shifting merchant fees on credit card to agents and consumers." More than a dozen members of Congress including two senators had requested that United delay the new policy for 60 days beyond its effective date of July 20. "United Blinks!" Maloney wrote.
Posted Jul 3, 2009
From the Totally Useless Coincidences That Make For A Lame Excuse To Post A Blog Item category, here are a couple tidbits picked up this week that had to do with the number 28. I'm more of a 3, 13, 33 kind of guy myself, so in the interest of making no numerological sense at all ahead of this weekend when we Americans celebrate the birth of a nation, here are two on 28...
Posted Jun 24, 2009
It appears United has taken the next step in the airline industry's never-ending quest to lower distribution costs or at least get others to shoulder the burden for them. As first reported in The Beat, United informed a currently unknown number of travel agents that they must process credit card transactions themselves and then report the sale as a cash transaction. Until now, when a travel agency (or online travel agency) has sold a published ticket on United (or any other carrier) the credit card is actually processed by the airline. As such, the airline is responsible for paying the 2 percent to 3 percent (in rough numbers) that Amex, Visa, Mastercard and Discover charge for using their cards.
Posted Jun 8, 2009
To The Beat,
Excellent coverage (as usual) of the interesting developments in airline commission policies in Canada. The step by Air Canada would also seem to be (another) clear effort to disintermediate the global distribution systems in Canada.
I'd like to add a little color to your discussion of online share of travel agent bookings in the U.S.
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