Airlogica Announces Support for the new Full Content GDS Pricing Schemes

U.S. GDS companies seek to strengthen their relationships with major North American carriers with new, multi-level distribution pricing models as reported in Business Travel News. Five-year agreements lock in these partnerships for long-term strategic alliances.

As you have been reading, the GDS distribution landscape in the United States is undergoing a dramatic change.  The major U.S. GDSs, Galileo (Apollo), Sabre and Worldspan, are moving to a Full Content pricing scheme and the cost of a segment will be based on whether the airline participant has a Full Content agreement with the various GDSs.  This is known as the “Opt-In” option.  In return, if a travel agency subscriber chooses to “Opt-Out” and not to become a participant with the GDS for that carrier’s Full Content, then the airline is permitted to charge the agency a direct fee.  The market level rate for this fee seems to be settled in at $3.50 per segment.  It is expected that there will be multiple levels of pricing for the same linktype in this new environment.

This new approach will become effective for all bookings made on or after September 1 of this year.

In anticipation of these changes, Airlogica has been in close contact with the major U.S. carriers and the three predominant U.S. GDSs in order to ensure that our Zeus customers will be able to reconcile their new invoices starting on day one.

Auditing of BIDT data and invoices has never been more important and such an unprecedented change demands careful and professional analysis by airline staff. The clients of Airlogica may rest assured that they are well equipped with Zeus, for Host and BIDT reporting, plus our robotic Flash product for real-time booking policy enforcement.

In addition to working closely with the airlines and U.S. GDSs, Airlogica is developing new tools that will enable the participating carriers to charge those travel agents, in a one-step process, who do not “Opt-In” for the Full Content level of subscription with the GDSs.

For those carriers outside of North America, please be patient.  We are sure you will be offered the full “benefit” of true Full Content pricing in due time.

Airlogica will be watching these developments very carefully.  You can be sure additional press releases will be forthcoming on this topic.

Contact David Harms, President & CEO, at david_harms@airlogica.com or +01 678 580 2913, for more information on how Airlogica Corporation can help your airline.