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No-frills airlines expected to resist fare comparison
WTM 2004 Special: Comtec has launched what it claims is a unique flight search and booking engine for agents, but is expecting a backlash from no-frills airlines.
The web-based solution allows agents to search and compare scheduled flights alongside charter, consolidator, web fares and no-frills flights.
What is unique about the system is that it allows agents to complete the booking within the Comtec system. It masks the website of the airline, be it EasyJet, Ryanair, British Airways or any other carrier, so that agents don’t get redirected to a different website to book the flight.
The booking information can then be fed into the TravelCat agency management system – used by 60% of the UK’s retail market, according to Comtec chief executive Simon Powell.
He also told TravelMole: “There will be issues with low cost carriers that don’t want their fares up for comparison with other airlines, just like in 1996 when tour operators wanted to stop us screen-scraping viewdata.
“But the difference is that low cost fares are in the public domain on the internet, so where tour operators could block ABTA numbers to stop agents getting into their system, the airlines can’t restrict access in the same way.
“It is not just a Comtec issue, it is an industry issue. It will be interesting to see what happens.”
Comtec has been showcasing EasySell Flights at World Travel Market. Although the company has no agency customers using the system yet, a number of companies have bought the engine behind it and will replace the Comtec branding with their own front office.
The schedule flights are accessed via a GDS, the no-frills flights by screen scraping and the charter flights by a mixture of screen scraping viewdata for flight-only options and operating an XML connections with companies such as Avro and Thomas Cook.
EasySell flights costs £15 per month per user.
Report by Ginny McGrath
Ginny McGrath
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