The existence of multiple Global Distribution Systems presents challenges for United States Government agencies’ efforts to manage travel. One such challenge involves determining which Global Distribution System an agency’s Travel Management Center should use, although my sense is that most agencies do not direct their Travel Management Center on which Global Distribution System to use. (Contractually, an agency may or may not even have the ability to determine which Global Distribution System their Travel ManagementCenter uses.)
Some Global Distribution Systems do not allow for the booking of tickets for certain airlines – although this is often driven by which airlines choose to participate in which Global Distribution Systems. In addition, the various online booking engines integrated within the E-Gov Travel systems do interact differently with the various Global Distribution Systems. My experience is that the numbers of flights that display in one of the E-Gov Travel online booking engines vary depending on the Global Distribution System the online booking engine is accessing. Are agencies going to evaluate this in determining which Global Distribution Systems should be used by their Travel Management Centers? The agencies should, but I doubt very many do.
There is also at least one example of one company owning both a Global Distribution System and one of the online booking engines used by an E-Gov Travel system. As you can imagine, when this company makes enhancements to and fixes errors in its online booking engine, preference is given to their online booking engine’s interaction with their own Global Distribution System. This is another situation that should be examined by agencies in determining which Global Distribution Systems should be used by their Travel Management Centers.
by Kevin Young