Sabre: No-frills can’t rely on their websites for ever

Business Travel Show London 2005: GDSs are confident they will get no-frills carriers onboard following deregulation of the industry.

Speaking at a “masterclass” on GDS deregulation at this week’s Business Travel Show in London, Sabre vice president, Leisure EMEA David Brown told the audience: “When there is deregulation of the industry we will be able to pitch to the likes of easyJet.”

He said the ownership by GDSs of multiple distributions channels, which in the case of Sabre is Travelocity and GetThere, makes GDSs an attractive offering for no-frills airlines.

He added: “We must get it [no-frills inventory] because it is an important part of content that travellers want to see.”

In an earlier presentation American Express director of industry affairs, Bernard Harrop quoted figures from a recent ACTE forum that found 92% of the audience thought GDSs did not provide the full content necessary to their organisation.

Mr Brown said for the majority of organisations this concerned access to the fares of no-frills airlines. He added that access to leisure content such as the tours, package holiday and dynamically-packaged content offered by leisure sites was also desirable but that no-frills were the priority for Sabre.

He told TravelMole why he thought no-frills airlines would need to distribute through GDSs despite the fact that many currently top 95% of bookings via their websites. “We can get them access to the higher yield buying customer – they can’t rely on website traffic infinitely.

“What happens when easyJet wants to start selling in the US or Italy? At that point we’ll make more sense for them.”

Deregulation of the GDS/airline/agent code of conduct is currently being debated by the European Commission, although no action is expected this year. In the US deregulation has already gone ahead, but in Europe the fact that Amadeus is still 42% owned by airlines is one of the matters complicating European legislation.

However, it is generally agreed that European deregulation is a case of when, rather than if, it goes ahead. And when deregulation does go ahead, it means agents, airlines and GDSs will be able to negotiate exclusive contracts between themselves.

Presentations from Mr Brown, Mr Harrop and from moderator, Robert Daykin, senior partner of Corporate Travel Partnership, outlined the possible effects of deregulation for agents and corporations as: Bias displaying of certain airlines, the participation of airlines in some GDSs but not others, different pricing by airlines in different GDSs and greater complexity of the booking and contracting process for agents and travel managers.  

Report by Ginny McGrath