So, what does happen when two or more airlines decide to consolidate or agree to a merger?  The consolidation/merger will go through several steps that will ultimately lead to one operation.  Below is a brief summary of some of the steps they will need to partake in:

• The airlines involved will need to sign an agreement after all legalities have been negotiated.
• Integrate management, routing structures, develop and obtain regulatory approvals concerning maintenance operations and conduct training.
• Then there is the Labor phase to consolidate and combine their respective work groups.

For the consumer or traveler:

• Traveler’s previously purchased tickets are usually honored with no problems.  (Occasionally flights have to be cancelled or rescheduled due to the merger but they try to accommodate the traveler even if they have to go to another airline to fill their needs.)
• Frequent Flyer status and points are transferred to the revised programs without any issues as well.

Once the airlines have consolidated the consumers, businesses and travel management systems feel the effects that can sometimes be good but also bad at the airport and in the market.  With less competition in most major markets the merger can reduce the amount of schedules offered and no longer at the lower fares.  Passengers that were loyal to their particular airlines may start to look elsewhere for cheaper flights and to those who offer more departures on additional days and times, all depending on what other airlines are offering at the time.

Consolidation can cause the merged airline’s routes to overlap and for certain cities with major hubs this causes a loss in service for one or the other airlines therefore creating fewer flight schedules.  This eventually can cut into the offered non-stop flights that were previously offered and reduce the benefits that were previously given to a traveler who frequents those routes.

Often the high ranking companies that provide on-time service can be hindered by their partnered airline(s) if they do not meet the same requirements or performance.  It doesn’t appear to improve customer service when airlines try to become more efficient for their own gains.  After a merger has been completed the special features that once drew a consumer to their airline to begin with has been dropped from the new integrated package of services offered.  In order for the airlines to co-exist they still offer special services but without the frills and generally at a higher rate now that they are no longer competing with each other for the business.

Reduction in the flight schedules also opens up another problem.  If you reduce the availability of different times and multiple days of departures are you not opening this up to your existing competitors to jump on the opportunity to take over with offering more flights themselves gaining popularity with the public?  Yes, this may result in gradually lowering fares but at what cost to the traveler.  Can the consolidation of airlines between large low-cost and low-fare carriers partner with others and still bring balance and protection to the consumer?

And what about our fellow Federal and Business travelers, will the companies be able to or want to maintain or provide their services through the GDS (Global Distribution System) and SABRE systems that most managed travel programs use?  A lot of independent airlines have been finding ways of going out on their own and avoiding the participation in the systems so that they don’t have to participate.

Several questions come to mind when we think of how and what our future travel needs will be.  Can a consolidation or merger change those needs?  Technology has played a big part in business travel by reducing some of the need to travel for meetings, training and conferences, all with the help of the innovation into Video and conference calling and the WebEx capabilities offered to just about all businesses.  Economic hardships for the industry and consumer have had an even harder impact on how people choose to travel.  Add to this the concern for safety from airplane maintenance to the fear terrorists.

To me the positive side of this is that you have two or more airlines that are trying to work together to make a good thing happen by giving a company a second chance.

By:  Debbie Hardman 

“The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Bureau of the Government or my Agency.”

As E-travel came on line, some of the most vocal complaints that we heard from the program offices and individual travelers involved the sudden “appearance” of fees for booking online or going through an agent.  The fee schedule was confusing and could be complex.  Many claimed that they had never had to pay the fees before (they had, but often they were considered part of the ticket price), and there were a lot of complaints about having to pay fees if the traveler was “doing all the work” to book the travel on line. A good part of the initial outreach involved educating people about the fees, and how to budget for the fees when planning travel. Our government travel staff provided a working estimate for a “typical” online and agent-assisted ticket, and that helped programs simplify their budgeting which also reduced their anxiety about having enough funds on hand on the authorization.  Over the last three or four years travelers have become much less sensitive to changes in the ticket fees.

Today, we have seen the price sensitivity shift from the really minor cost of ticketing fees to more requests for waivers from having to use the city-pairs contract tickets.  This becomes a major issue particularly during the first quarter of the fiscal year and the very end of the fourth quarter when funds are in short supply.  Congress’s perpetual inability to pass a budget in a timely manner exacerbates the problem because continuing resolutions only provide a portion of an agency’s budget with a 10% reduction from the prior fiscal year.  When a researcher has travel scheduled several months in advance timed to attend a conference or do field research, it is not feasible to simply delay the trip.  This larger price sensitivity is also a long-term issue for GSA’s City-Pair program that will have to be addressed in future City-Pair negotiations if the program is to continue to be viable.  The paying programs and their travelers have become much more sophisticated in their use of the e-travel systems, both government and private, and they are expecting more from the government programs as well.

by Julie Speers

by Grant Brown

“The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.”

One of the goals of the President’s Management Agenda E-Gov Travel Service was to provide a cost savings to the agencies. The agencies can only achieve these cost savings by promoting and encouraging self-service reservations whenever possible. A simple trip from Washington Dulles to Atlanta should not require agent intervention. Yet it does even if booked online, because the City Pair carrier is Air Tran. It is conceded that Air Tran and another similar carrier, Jet Blue offer very low city pair fares, some of the lowest in all the markets. In this day and age of automation and 3GB I-phones, a Government traveler should be able to book any city pair fare online as a self-service transaction.

by Jacqueline Lynch

The GDS houses the necessary information that will allow travel agents to book and sell airline tickets, book hotel rooms, make rental car reservations, and reserve rail reservations and more. The first GDS, Sabre, was created by the airlines in the 1960s.  Sabre has been around a lot longer than its competitors; Amadeus was created in 1987, Worldspan in 1990 and Galileo/Apollo in 1993.

These complex systems have numerous capabilities.  Besides what was previously mentioned, the GDS can even allow a traveler to select a particular seat on an aircraft.  The GDS will also allow a traveler to enter their frequent flyer number, so that the traveler can receive rewards for flying with a particular airline.

Sabre also provides a website that gives the travelers the latest information concerning their reservations.  This site is very helpful to my agency as some of our travelers neglect to electronically attach their invoice/itinerary to his/her voucher.  We can easily go to the Sabre’s Virtually There website, print a copy of the traveler’s invoice, and attach it to their voucher.

Federal Government travelers must use their E-Gov Travel System or book the traditional way by calling their travel management center (TMC).  Even though Federal Government travelers are not allowed to use a commercial used on-line booking engine, Sabre owns Travelocity.com, which is the leading on-line travel website.

No matter which GDS is used in connection with your agency’s E-Gov Travel System, one factor to keep in mind is that not all airlines participate in a GDS.  Currently the following airlines do not participate:

• AFRIC AIR CHARTER
• ALASKA MARINE HIGHWAY
• AIRTRAN AIRWAYS
• AIR NORTH
• BERING AIR INC
• BIG SKY
• CANADIAN NORTH/AIR NORTERRA INC.
• CAPE AIR
• EXPRESS JET
• FRONTIER FLYING SERVICE
• FRONTIER FLYING
• FORTY MILE AIR
• FJORD FLYING SERVICE
• FS AIR SERVICE / TRANS AIR BENIN
• GREAT LAKES
• HAGLAND AIRLINES
• HOMER AIR
• ISLAND AIR
• JET BLUE
• KENMORE AIR HARBOUR INC.
• LAB FLYING SERVICE
• LARRY’S FLYING SERVICE
• OLYMPIC AIRLINES
• PACIFIC COAST AIRLINES
• PAN AM CLIPPER CONNECT/BOSTON MAINE AIRWAYS
• PENAIR/PENISULA AIR
• PROMECH
• SOUTHWEST
• SPERNAK AIR
• SPIRIT AIRLINES
• VIRGIN AMERICA
• WARBELOWS AIR VENTURES
• WINGS OF ALASKA
• WRIGHT AIR SERVICE

by Pam Morton

The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.

This issue has become evident with Secure Flight the TSA passenger tracking system requiring the full name, date of birth, gender and redress number if applicable for every airline passenger.  The airlines and GDS systems have been scrambling in order to adapt their systems to accept the necessary fields.  This has become a long and tedious process as currently the systems have limitations on the number of characters possible for each line and a maximum number of lines.

It is now the times to update these systems in order to create user friendly platforms that are easily updated and less expensive to maintain.

Although travel is currently in a recession due to the economic downturn, travel is here to stay, therefore we must use our knowledge of what works and improve upon it.  The economy has provided an excellent opportunity for the airlines and travel management companies to step back and reevaluate there current technology. This can be accomplished by dedicating valuable resources; both travel professionals and IT in the development of air travel search products that actually work. Many IT professional know nothing about travel and therefore create colorful eye-catching platforms that do not complete the basic functions required by the typical travel professional.  Travel professionals need to take an interest in the technology and participate in the initial programming in order to ensure future success.

Updating the GDS or creating an entirely new platform would revitalize the travel industry by creating a modern airline reservation system and ultimately bringing the industry into the 21 Century.

By Maruca Malloy

The Global Distribution System (GDS) evolved from the Computer Reservation System (CRS), used as far back as the 1950’s.  Unlike the airline-owned CRS, the GDS is operated by non-airline companies, and the airlines are not required to use the GDS.  Perhaps the reason that some travel services or airlines choose not to participate in the GDS is because the GDS charges fees for its usage.

 Currently there are three major GDS vendors: Sabre, Amadeus, and Travelport (Worldspan).  In my experience, I have learned that Southwest Airlines and Amtrak reservations come under the Sabre GDS, while other airlines fall under the Worldspan GDS.  So I don’t understand the part of the training manual that states that “only one GDS system is used for any one client”.  Maybe I’m misunderstanding this statement, but in my experience with my agency’s TMC, the Southwest and Amtrak reservations have fallen under the Sabre GDS, and the hotel, car, and other airline reservations have come under the Worldspan GDS.  I have seen reservations which list two separate PNR’s for the same trip: one for Sabre and another one for Worldspan.

 One thing that I wonder, and perhaps an expert on this forum could answer, is: Will an airline or hotel company be billed when people just search for travel on a GDS-run website due to “GDS hits” being generated?

By K.J. Martin

*NB: The above post is my own personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of my agency or of the Federal Government.*

One of the challenges I face is travelers feel that they can get a better deal searching themselves on the internet, rather than using the States TMC.  One reoccurring theme is that travelers are unaware that different  pricing models exist between the airlines, the 4 GDS’ and the  internet booking tools and that some airlines may only advertise on some, or not advertise at all.

Although the airline and GDS practices are perfectly fair and legal, no different than choosing which yellow page book an airline wants to advertise in, the unintended consequence is a traveler who may choose only to use one online booking engine, unaware that the tool he may choose doesn’t have the airline that can get there non-stop vs. going through one or multiple hubs.

One of our jobs is to educate travelers so they understand the differences and trying to educate the traveler is sometimes an uphill battle. With the vast number of people traveling for the government, it is sometimes a daunting task.   So how do we do this? Forums, educational manuals, on-line tools.   These are all effective methods of training, and we travel managers should be putting this in our toolbox when we explain the benefits of using out TMC vs. searching on their own.

This certification program is also a great venue that explains the pluses and minuses of the GDS, airlines and internet booking tools. Maybe there should be a pared down of this course for the traveler and make it a requirement for every person who travels take the course.

by Tim Hay

PNRs were developed by airlines so they could exchange reservation information since passengers frequently use more than one airline to reach their destination.  In the electronic travel system we use, the travel management center (TMC) creates a PNR in the Global Distribution System when an airline reservation is made. 

The PNR contains various information such as the traveler’s name, contact and ticketing details, itinerary, fare details such as ticket restrictions and method of payment.  To assist in the tracing of criminals and/or terrorists, many governments now require the airline to provide gender, date and place of birth, passport details and WatchList exclusion number.

The PNR is identified by a record locator.  The record locator identifies a specific reservation or PNR.  The record locator is usually six characters long and combines alpha and numeric characters.  Since characters 1, I, L, 0 and O can be confusing, they are not used in record locators.  Examples of a record locator could be KRGB58, FG2B86 and RM252J. 

Record locator KRGB58 could identify the PNR for John Doe traveling to San Francisco, California on December 18, 2011 by two segments such as economy class on ABC airline and first class on DEF airline.  Some airlines use the term confirmation number, reservation number or confirmation code instead of record locator.

A cancelled or completed trip doesn’t erase the PNR information.  PNRs are transferred to archived storage systems and can be retained indefinitely by airlines, travel management centers and/or CRSs.  Despite the sensitive information PNRs can contain, they are treated as a form of commercial transaction data.  Therefore, many people and privacy organizations are concerned about the privacy of sensitive information in their PNRs.

 By Dean Cox

 “The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency.”

Not all airlines and hotels use a Global Distribution System as the GDS charges travel vendors to display inventories. If a supplier uses a GDS, it is the airline carrier, hotel, or rental car company’s responsibility to keep the GDS updated with current information. In some instances some small airlines do not use the GDS and therefore, the TMC must be contacted directly either by phone or by requesting assistance on line by entering a comment. The TMC will then contact the Non-GDS vendor to work with the traveler to make their reservations.

With domestic and foreign (non-complex) travel it is a requirement that our customers use the online booking tool within our eTS to book their reservations. However with complex foreign travel we encourage our customers to book directly through the TMC via phone. With complex foreign travel, the TMC has knowledge of and can offer advice about Visa requirements, the fly America Act, or if foreign carriers and flights are limited or unavailable in the GDS and will require TMC assistance.

by Brian Shears