February 8, 2011

Travel Distribution 2011 – an Update

Tweet Since my December post, a number of developments have occurred on the evolving travel distribution front: Sabre and AA have called a temporary truce and are in negotiations to resolve their conflict Priceline has embraced the AA direct connect strategy clearly following an independent path from Expedia and Orbitz USAir has signed a multi-year agreement with Expedia which includes […]
December 22, 2010

Orbitz – AA Ruling – Is 2011 the year we will see Permanent Changes in Air Distirbution?

Tweet News this week that AA successfully defeated the Orbitz  motion for a temporary injunction allowing AA to remove its content from Orbitz has uncovered some interesting news that may foretell major changes in air distribution for 2011 and beyond. As reported in the Beat, sources are indicating that Priceline may be the first of the four major OTAs to […]
July 27, 2010

Google / ITA and the GDS

Tweet Now that the Google acquisition has been announced a great deal speculation has emerged as far as Google’s intentions. Given the fact that regulatory approval is required and that the deal has not been completed, ITA itself has been unable to speculate on Google’s strategy. Google has devoted some energy in stating that it will not become a seller […]
April 20, 2010

Ancillary Fees and Merchandizing

Tweet The media is filled with stories on airline ancillary fees especially with Spirit Airlines announcing a fee for carry-on baggage and Ryanair contemplating pay toilets.  These charges represent a much bigger change in travel distribution than simply paying for services that were previously free. From multiple industry sources it is clear to me that we are only at the […]
October 22, 2009

Ancillary Airline Revenue and Fare Families

Tweet Over the last few weeks I have given a number of keynote presentations to a variety of airline groups. These audiences covered the entire spectrum of airline types: legacy, LCCs , and 2nd & 3rd tier airlines with speeches in the US and Europe. The airline executives were a mix of e-commerce, revenue managers and IT executives dependent on […]
August 5, 2008

AA’s battle with Kayak

Tweet There has been a lot of media buzz regarding the announcement that AA was pulling their inventory from meta-search engine Kayak. The news was first leaked by Tech Crunch on July 23rd. The article stated that AA was pulling their inventory from Kayak and considering doing the same for Orbitz, which Kayak uses to supplement direct connections with airlines. […]