Air Tight in the Windy City or Defining Full Content Once and For All

In my last couple of posts I've talked about the need for air-tight commitments from the airlines to full content and protection from discrimination.  Corporations provide too much high-yield business to airlines to be given anything less than an air-tight commitment to full content.  And corporations shouldn't be discriminated against for the GDS they choose; it should be your choice, particularly because of the value you bring the airlines.  (As one corporate travel manager said yesterday here at the NBTA Convention in Chicago, "It's a lot easier to switch airlines than GDSs.")

I was drafted onto a panel today in the “Nobody’s Content With Content” session to represent corporate travel departments when a panelist could not attend. It was lively and all the threshold questions came up. The “F” word, fragmentation, and concerns about it, was raised by members of the audience and the panel alike. It was clear travel managers want serious commitments to full content through their GDS.

But what do we mean when we say "air-tight commitments to full content" and "no discrimination?"

Full content means exactly that: everything.  It's all fares made available for purchase by the general public at any reservations outlet:

• Published fares -- from any channel that are broadly available/published

• Web fares -- whether the airlines or an online agency

• Promotional fares

• Private fares

We've heard about airlines wanting to keep the right to send promotional offers to "targeted groups" of their travelers.  If it's not well-defined, a "targeted group" could mean "only their frequent flyers," which of course is tens of millions of people, and probably a great percentage of your travelers.  (See my previous posting about what happens to your travel program when airlines are allowed to make offers you can't make to your travelers.)

Then there's non-discriminatory access.  You shouldn't be discriminated against because of the GDS you use. You should have non-discriminatory
access to all private/unpublished fares including:                                 

--bulk fares
--consolidator fares
--corporate negotiated discounts
--group fares
--meeting and convention fares
--net fares

It's important that we get this right.  Everyone should be asking their
GDS and their airlines about this.  Will you get access to truly full
content, or will there be holes in the promise?  Will you be
discriminated against because of who you do business with?

The answers should be unequivocal.

Comments

[Mel Volmer]

It sounds great to say talk to your GDS's and airlines but they are not listening.
It seems they will only listen if someone with enough clout or influence gets their attention. How can that be accomplished?

[Frank Dolce - Global Travel Manger OSI Systems]

I'm trying to get the airlines to "represent and warrant" in our new agreements that the statement on their websites regarding full content is the official definition of full content. They refuse to put it in black and white in a legally enforceable document. That leads me to believe they have no intention of actually providing full content. We pay our agency extra for the 8 airlines that signed the "Efficient Access" Agreement with Sabre. I woulnd't mind paying the extra if we were getting some kind of "representation or warrant' that full content is indeed that.

As I see it the airlines and the GDSs have made a secret agreement for "full content" but won't tell us what that means other than to point us to some general language on a website that can change at any moment.

comments?