Southwest ties with Volaris - LCC Triumvirate?

Southwest Airlines and Volaris the upstart Mexican airline have today announced their long awaited tie up.

Southwest previously announced a northern alliance with Westjet.

So let's speculate at the moment that this in turn shields each other's market and creates a Non-GDS based alliance of almost biblical proportions.

The 3 airlines represent the pinnacle of the North American version of the LCC model. Each is very strong in their own right and all 3 will create a partnership that could knock the pants off any player or even combination of players north of the Panama Canal.

This will put a crimp in the style of JetBlue's southward expansion and also start a rush to further non-GDS based alliances.

I would take issue with the "seamless" integration statement in their PR release. That is a little over the top.

And yes that crumbling sound you hear in the background IS the sound of the GDS model falling.

Cheers

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