The Global Distribution System (GDS) is an integral part of the E-Gov Travel System (ETS). All three of the possible ETS solutions access the GDS and allow travelers to select and reserve their own airline, hotel, and rental car accommodations. This concept was new to many of us in 2004 when we started implementing ETS and we also hadn’t realized the challenges that it would present.
Up until this time, we relied solely on the Travel Management Center (TMC) to provide service for all aspects of reservations, ticketing, and any other general airline question. Since the reservations are now integrated, travelers began calling our help desk with the questions that they use to ask the TMC’s. At this time, we began to realize how little we really knew about the GDS. We worked with our ETS and TMC providers to gain some of this knowledge but in order to provide excellent customer service; we knew we needed additional training.
In order to acquire this information, myself and another person from my office attended a Professional Travel Agent Training Program. This training was a combination of classroom and actual GDS training. The GDS training covered the following sections:
• Airline Reservations
• Automated Fares and Ticketing
• Car Reservations
• Hotel Reservations
• Amtrak
The actual GDS training was very beneficial. While working through the training exercises, we started to understand why the vendor had developed screens the way they had done so. Now that we had a more in-depth knowledge, we could ask the vendors more questions but the most important aspect of this GDS training was that we could provide input for enhancements that would benefit all of our customers
by Kim Fordyce
Disclaimer: The contents of this message are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Government or my agency. Use of this equipment is consistent with the agency’s policy governing limited personal use.