Southwest will be returning to participation in Worldspan announced today as part of their ongoing campaign to court the business traveler.
However Worldspan even under Travelport ownership is not known as a major corporate agency system, nor do they have deep penetration among agencies in WN's key markets. So why?
Two reasons:
Reason 1 - Southwest needs all the bookings they can get - with Galileo and Worldspan under joint ownership (but NOT common platforms), Travelport made them an offer they couldnt refuse.
Reason 2 - Southwest needs a back door capability to reach the OTAs who are still using Worldspan.
It has been a long time coming. Now if only Southwest would announce something more meatier. We still dont have much clue to their long term strategy change.
Showing posts with label Travelport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travelport. Show all posts
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Westjet nixes AiRes - Travelport and IBS get bloody nose
After leaning over backwards to accomodate Travelport - Westjet finally announced it was pulling the plug on the Aires project and staying put with its aging OpenSkies solution for PSS.
This creates a significant problem for Westjet which is expanding fast and after a few fumbles needs the capability of an advanced Internal res system to maintain its growth.
The impact of this decision is that there are some beneficiaries for WestJet's action. Air Canada and ITA must be breathing a huge sigh of relief because it buys them more time on Polaris. Air Canada must also be happy that no other Alliance is going to be present in Canada for at least the next 2 calendar years. Probably there will be rejoicing in the Unisys camp and probably at Results too. However the big winners are probably Sabre, Navitaire and Amadeus who will be celebrating the misfortune of their most noisy competitor.
Then there are those who must be pretty nervous about now. Virgin Blue is happy not to have to proceed with their implementation but Virgin America is probably having kittens and hoping against hope that the system stays up and running over the next 4 weeks. All of Aires customers must be making urgent phone calls to their lawyers.
Its always unfortunate to see an industry supplier such as IBS stumble. Lets hope they use the time wisely and take the time to fix their problems. Insiders tell us this is not a trivial matter for any player.
Cheers
Timothy
This creates a significant problem for Westjet which is expanding fast and after a few fumbles needs the capability of an advanced Internal res system to maintain its growth.
The impact of this decision is that there are some beneficiaries for WestJet's action. Air Canada and ITA must be breathing a huge sigh of relief because it buys them more time on Polaris. Air Canada must also be happy that no other Alliance is going to be present in Canada for at least the next 2 calendar years. Probably there will be rejoicing in the Unisys camp and probably at Results too. However the big winners are probably Sabre, Navitaire and Amadeus who will be celebrating the misfortune of their most noisy competitor.
Then there are those who must be pretty nervous about now. Virgin Blue is happy not to have to proceed with their implementation but Virgin America is probably having kittens and hoping against hope that the system stays up and running over the next 4 weeks. All of Aires customers must be making urgent phone calls to their lawyers.
Its always unfortunate to see an industry supplier such as IBS stumble. Lets hope they use the time wisely and take the time to fix their problems. Insiders tell us this is not a trivial matter for any player.
Cheers
Timothy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
