Air Canada and Galileo today said they entered into an agreement to allow the global distribution system to offer the carrier's Web-only content to Canada-based subscribers via a new agency desktop expected to launch by year-end. Air Canada in the past year has released several offerings available only through its Web site—including unbundled, a la carte fares and prepaid flight passes for corporations—to the chagrin of some GDS-dependent corporate travel buyers.
The offering initially is expected to be available only for Canadian point-of-sale transactions, but Galileo could pursue a similar path in the United States.
Air Canada vice president of sales and product distribution Marc Rosenberg characterized the offering as a "hybrid" between a direct connect and a full-content GDS agreement.
"I wouldn't call it a workaround," Jean Collier, Galileo Americas vice president of supplier services, said today. "It will certainly be different, but it's a revolutionary process where we'll be taking content directly from Air Canada through their application program interface. From the user perspective, it gives a much richer experience on the desktop because we have access to a lot more data that we typically would not be able to handle in the green-screen environment."
Collier said Galileo agents currently could view Air Canada's flights and schedules, but not its fares. "The desktop will look much more like a consumer Web site, because we'll have a matrix display of everything that's available—not just Air Canada, but other airlines as well—based on the information we will take from the GDS to populate the desktop," she said.
Air Canada general manager of product distribution Graham Wareham said through the agreement the carrier would handle booking and ticketing, while Galileo would handle back-office integration and reporting. "It's actually an integrated environment," Wareham said. "They're actually in the Air Canada environment when they're in the Galileo environment. There's no leaving and pushing back and forth."
Air Canada said Galileo-leveraging booking tools would be able to access Air Canada content, but only after tools are customized to meet the carrier's display requirements.
Air Canada in October 2006 began unbundling flight options through its Web site, allowing travelers to customize bookings by "buying added services or, conversely, to save money by declining benefits normally included in their selected fare type
(BTN, Nov. 6, 2006)." Before that, the carrier launched its Corporate Flight Pass—prepaid flight segments for redemption in various geographical zones—as its preferred way to negotiate fares with corporate clients
(BTN, Oct. 23, 2006). Travel buyers, however, griped that their preferred distribution vehicle, the GDS, took a back seat to the Air Canada Web site, prompting agencies and technology companies to seek workarounds. Concur earlier this year leveraged the same API to integrate Air Canada content into its Cliqbook booking tool.
Meanwhile, the other three major global distribution systems—Amadeus, Sabre and Worldspan—recently said they too were in the midst of enabling airfare unbundling and other travel-merchandising options through their systems as more carriers explore such fare offerings
(BTN, July 23).
Galileo's Collier said, "Air Canada, at this point, is the only one that's this far down the path—that's why we're launching it with Air Canada in the Canadian market. We've had conversations with other airlines, and we'll continue to do so."
"We've been in ongoing dialogue with all parties," Rosenberg said. "They're in different stages of dialogue, but the only GDS we've succeeded in introducing this concept with has been Galileo."