IATA Chief Cites GDS Partner Role, But Remains Critical - 0 views
www.travelmarketreport.com/technology
IATA; chief partner ; GDS; XML; Open AXIS; Farelogix; American Airlines
shared by Deborah Fromer on 16 Jul 12
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While remaining critical of GDSs, IATA director general Tony Tyler sounded a somewhat less combative tone toward “our global distribution system partners” during his keynote speech at the IATA annual general meeting in Beijing.
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Giovanni Bisignani, who retired as director general last year after 10 years in the post, made the GDS industry a frequent target of his famous “Basta!” moments over segment fees.
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More recently, Tyler has excoriated GDS companies for what he called a failure to meet the changing needs of airlines as they adopt new merchandising methods.
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Our global distribution system partners help us to sell 60% of our tickets,” he said. “Beginning four decades ago, when these systems were created, their cutting-edge technology expanded our distribution horizons.”
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But are blocking innovation
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Open AXIS messages were in turn donated by Farelogix, the company that developed American Airlines’ Direct Connect technology.
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GDSs, which are built on operating systems dating from the 1970s, have not been able to facilitate innovation like we have seen in other industries.”
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multimillion dollar airline product investments “cannot break free of product descriptions limited to booking classes like F, C, or Y and their derivatives. And personalized offers based on availability, customer needs, preferences or histories are effectively impractical.”
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IATA is working on new distribution standards to enable airline product differentiation, he said. Those standards are based on XML messaging schema adopted as “standard” by Open AXIS, the U.S. organization that promotes XML as the ideal technology connection linking airlines with distributors.
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“XML standards and customer-friendly interfaces are the new cutting edge, facilitating revolutions in how the world does business.
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IATA will define the foundation standard this year
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The International Air Transport Associate (IATA) at their annual general meeting in Beijing have had enough with the outdated Global Distribution Systems technology. The new Director General Tony Tyler indicated that in the 70's the system was cutting edge technology expanding distribution for airlines but years later the technology lacks innovation and must be brought up to date with airline product differentiation. This can be done by adopting new standards through XML messaging schema. Farelogix has donated XML through Open Axis, an organization that promotes the XML technology for linking airlines with distributors, similar to the technology that American Airlines has been using. IATA indicates that this year they will define the foundation standards in partnership with the GDSs, a necessary progression.
