Despite the director general of IATA recently asserting that "It’s time for the GDSs come to the table with efficiency gains and cost savings," Amadeus commercial executive vice president David Jones earlier this month told us he's hopeful that the next major round of airline-GDS talks in the United States (due no later than 2011) will include greater recognition of "the value of the GDSs as distribution vehicles or as means to distribution through the travel agency chain." Some carriers, Jones said, have given him reason to believe.
"As far as their push to direct sales, a number of the, shall I say, more forthright airlines around the world have told us that certainly in their home markets, our pricing now is fully competitive with the cost of their direct distribution, so in economic terms there is no particular incentive for them to push the switch from the indirect to the direct channel," said Jones. "That's only a handful of airlines, but the more open ones."
Asked whether conversations between big U.S. carriers and GDSs were already underway, Jones said, "Not with us."
"Although we don't expect a particularly easy ride, we do expect the value of the GDSs will be more recognized, accepted and acknowledged as rather a good thing by the airlines. Maybe that's wishful thinking," Jones added. "With any luck--whereas I never expect any management team to give up on attempts to reduce costs in every line of their P&L--nevertheless, I hope that the atmosphere will be somewhat different" than in prior rounds.
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