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Posted Nov 22, 2011
Since we hit the send button today on a story in The Beat about a judge dismissing a few of American Airlines' antitrust claims against Travelport, the carrier revised the first statement it issued, co-defendant Sabre shared its take on the ruling and Orbitz announced that motions AA filed against the company have been dismissed.
Posted Nov 21, 2011
Although Sabre reportedly could go public in a couple of years, today's market doesn't have much of an appetite for a GDS initial public offering, a couple of financial types said last week at the PhoCusWright conference in Hollywood, Fla.
Posted Oct 30, 2011
Travel management companies are open to the idea that airlines will pay them to merchandize, but not if it requires them to start paying for distribution technology to enable it. At least, this was the message from a couple of TMC executives speaking at The Beat Live last month, and please do comment below if you disagree (or agree!).
Posted Jul 29, 2011
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 moods, and maybe that’s why it’s really sticking in my craw, but I just really feel the need to respond to this one.
Posted Jun 24, 2011
I am now going to shift gears away from online technology and the role that they play in the travel distribution ecosystem to a topic that I have been personally intrigued with since I wrote my first book on Global Distribution Systems in 1999. That topic is GDS marketshare.
As background: Last week, I wrote a blog post that made an erroneous statement about Travelport being the biggest in the US. Rival Sabre quickly corrected me, but would not provide me with statistics to prove their claim. Notice I say "would not," not "could not."
Sabre will be happy to know that I have since corrected that article after verifying the information with Travelport, but decided to write a new blog today on the GDS share topic to augment the correction.
Posted Jun 22, 2011
Continental extended to 2013 from 2011 the expiration of its Sabre global distribution agreement to coincide with merger partner United, a spokesperson confirmed.
With that, we've updated the Deadline Watch chart to the best of our knowledge. For Continental’s Amadeus deal, the United spokesperson asked us to replace the previous (and definite) 2011 expiration date in the chart with a very indefinite "ND." The companies wouldn’t elaborate on what's up there. The expiration of both Continental's and United's agreements with Travelport, meanwhile, coincide in 2013. Care to fill in any of the blanks in the chart? Drop me a line.
Posted Jun 22, 2011
For those keeping score at home, we have posted this hopefully handy chart of deadlines for U.S. airline-global distribution system participation agreements. To include the months of expiration would be a bit onerous, but you get the picture.
We'll update this post as results come in. Let us know if you can fill in any blanks...
|
Amadeus |
Sabre |
Travelport |
| AirTran |
ND |
2011 |
ND |
| Alaska Airlines |
2011 |
2011 |
2011 |
| American Airlines |
ND |
2012 |
2012 |
| Delta Air Lines |
ND |
2013 |
2013 |
| JetBlue |
ND |
2012 |
2012 |
| Southwest Airlines |
NP |
ND |
2017 |
| United Airlines |
2013 |
2013 |
2013 |
| US Airways |
2011 |
ND |
2012 |
ND = Not Disclosed
NP = Not Participating
Sources: GDS company statements, industry sources, The Beat |
Posted Jun 10, 2011
This is an oligopoly with three major players and one regional player. Travelport owns three GDS brands, Galileo marketed globally, Apollo and Worldspan marketed primarily in the US. Travelport is the number two player in the US. Sabre is number one in the US and markets its product everywhere in the world but Asia, where they have an investment in Abacus. Separate from the Abacus activity, Sabre is currently number three globally. Abacus is hosted on Sabre. Amadeus is the number one GDS worldwide, but is the number three player in the U.S.
Posted Jun 9, 2011
Travel technology is anything but simple. These days, I spend the better part of my week talking to the investment community about travel technology and trying to help them make sense of the current distribution debate, which is mostly about money, but at least in part is about the technology infrastructure of this industry.
So today, since the AA/Sabre dispute is at the top of the list of things that the investment community wants to talk about, I decided to use American as my case in point about distribution and the technology that drives it.
Posted Jun 3, 2011
Not being a lawyer, the question which comes to my mind is whether the court's ruling is a matter of exerting an obligation to adhere to a current contract or the right to distribution. From where I sit, it would appear that the court ruled on the matter of an existing contract between AA and Orbitz; not on a matter relating to perpetual access to distribution. Thus, the ruling may be a short-term jurisdiction over a contract in the battle; but not necessarily a long-term jurisdiction over the right of access to unfettered distribution.
Bruce Bishins, CTC - ARTA and ARTA Canada
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