The Practical Nomad

If you have not yet seen the blog of Edward Hasbrouck, The Practical Nomad, now would be a good time. Two recent posts relate directly to topics I posted here earlier. First, the dispute between American Airlines and Sabre regarding PNR data. Second, the new government requirement for passenger data as I mentioned yesterday in announcing British Airways' new system.

BA First Airline to Implement Airlogica's Passenger Verification

British Airways is calling the implementation "seamless, efficient, and timely. And, as always we are very happy with the high value and low cost of Flash." Flash is the name of the robotic software used to verify passport and related data as now required by the US Government. Wendy Kent from BA said “We have a large number of flights to US gateways, and trying to implement a mainframe or manual solution was not feasible. We knew that Airlogica would offer the the most appropriate answer."

Expedia Hits a Downdraft

The Motley Fool at MSN Money is reporting that Expedia's earnings could take a hit from the latest actions by GDS companies to squeeze travel agent incentives. Worldspan is a big contributor of incentives to Expedia - in excess of $170 million annually. And, we all know that Worldspan has trouble of their own. Nonetheless, Expedia is still the big daddy of online agents with over 40% market share.

Consultants in the News

Two consultants that have been mentioned recently in this blog are quoted again in the news. Experts are once again upbeat about the airline industry, even after factoring in the new security concerns post London terror plot. "As a practical matter, this is not going to have a major impact on traffic or the attitudes of the traveling public," agreed Jon Ash, president of InterVISTAS-ga2 Consulting Inc., an aviation consulting company in Washington. "I think this will be just a very short blip," said airline consultant Darryl Jenkins.

Workshop for Asia- Pacific Airlines

Airlogica conducted an Advanced BIDT Analysis and Strategies Workshop for attendees from Asian and Pacific airlines as well as a few from EMEA. Qantas Airways hosted the class which was held the week of August 7 in Sydney. On the final day, a Qantas Executive delivered a thought-provoking presentation on how Qantas uses the Airlogica software to reduce distribution costs. This was a very informative session that prompted lively discussion and questions. Each of the attendees left with a USB drive containing the latest version of Zeus as well as copies of all the material, filters etc. built during the class. More importantly, they all left with an enhanced knowledge of BIDT Analysis plus a new set of global colleagues. Congratulations to the graduates who will return to their airlines with a new sense of purpose.

Airlogica is committed to providing training and consulting services to enable our customers to maximize the benefit of our products. Future classes are planned during 2007.

JetBlue On Again, With GDSs That Is

JetBlue has signed deals with Galileo and Sabre to allow direct distribution of all seats and fares. This is a decided departure (pun intended) from their earlier anti-GDS stance. One must wonder how this will effect GDS alternatives like G2 SwitchWorks. This old Business Week article is a good primer on where things stood before this important announcement.

US Airways Signs Deal With Expedia

One of my favourite headline blogs, m-travel, has two related reports on the new US Airways - both regarding distribution. It seems that the marketing blokes are shoring up five year deals with Sabre, Travelocity and Expedia. It is interesting to juxtapose this with the open battle between American Airlines and Sabre. Only time (or all-knowing consultants) will reveal the winning strategy.