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Posted Aug 11, 2009
The slow painful lack of progress with the Air Canada reservations project known as Polaris has come to a dead stop with AC writing off C$67 million. More importantly, the depth of the work left to do was an astonishing C$40 million. This clearly indicates that the project was no where near done. Even if you discount a large amount of money for implementation, there is a clear indication that this project had some significant hills to climb to reach an "implementable" solution. Sadly, ITA Software is left without its anchor customer for what is a significant amount of their future revenue expectation. And the big winner in all this?
Posted Jun 9, 2009
The Association of Canadian Travel Agencies convinced WestJet not to cut travel agency commissions as deeply as it had planned. After discussions with ACTA, WestJet agreed to lower commissions only by two percentage points--to 7 percent from 9 percent--rather than by the five percentage points it initially announced, according to ACTA. The change still will be effective July 1.
WestJet's earlier decision to lower commissions to 4 percent disappointed ACTA. It was followed quickly by an Air Canada decision to add 4 percent agency commissions to certain fares booked through a direct online agent portal, drawing praise from ACTA. I guess the proverbial ball is in Air Canada's court now. Volley or pass?
Posted Aug 5, 2008
Last week at the National Business Travel Association convention in Los Angeles, NBC's Peter Greenberg moderated a conversation with Delta Air Lines CEO Richard Anderson and Air Canada CEO Montie Brewer. One of the more entertaining exchanges occurred near the end of the session. It included some friendly crossborder jabs as well as a bit of sermonizing from the two carrier chiefs. It went like this:
Posted Jul 2, 2008
U.S. airlines during the past few months have made known their plans to reduce domestic capacity. But there is a growing list of international routes--traditionally seen as highly lucrative for operators but now cost-prohibitive in many cases--that carriers are canning. So while it may become more difficult to fly between a small city in New England and one in New Mexico, it may be even more challenging to get to England, or Mexico.
Posted Apr 24, 2008
Re: [$$] FEATURE: Reality of Unbundled Faring's Challenges Taking Hold
The article failed to mention that Marc Rosenberg of Air Canada opened the TravelCom panel by stating that Travelport was further ahead than the other GDSs in delivering for Air Canada a merchandising desktop solution, Travelport Agencia, which enables travel agents to book all of its offerings that are available on the carrier’s Web site.
Posted Feb 29, 2008
We checked in with Air Canada and ITA Software on the progress of their new airline reservation system, which Air Canada calls Polaris.
Posted Feb 6, 2008
Add American Airlines to the list of carriers that has publicly praised Air Canada's control over its product distribution.
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