US Airways confirmed it received notice today from Worldspan that on Nov. 15 it will remove the carrier from its global distribution system if US Airways does not agree to provide all inventory to Worldspan as it has Galileo and Sabre
(BTN, Oct. 28). Unlike those two GDS competitors, Worldspan is not offering US Airways a price break in return.
"We think Worldspan is being very consumer-unfriendly, but we expect to work it out," said B. Ben Baldanza, US Airways senior vice president of marketing and planning. Baldanza said Worldspan's ultimatum is based on what he called "vague" language in its airline-GDS participation agreement that "we don't believe they interpreted properly. We don't believe they have a right to this for free." Worldspan has not yet provided a comment.
"It's unfortunate for Worldspan agencies to be caught in the middle," added US Airways' vice president of sales Steve Tracas.
Worldspan is owned by American, Delta and Northwest airlines; Galileo and Sabre have no airline ownership. "We take note of the fact Worldspan is the only airline-controlled GDS, but I hope that has nothing to do with this," said Baldanza.
Addressing the possibility of being pulled from Web sites that rely on Worldspan-such as Expedia, Orbitz and Priceline-Baldanza said US Airways expects to connect directly to Orbitz by year-end and to Expedia "at some point."
US Airways officials said they had approached Worldspan with the same terms agreed with Sabre, and added that it is "too premature" to assess the impact on those arrangements from the latest Worldspan move.
"We think Worldspan's customers will want Worldspan to have full access," said Baldanza.
"What Galileo and Sabre agreed to is what we need," said Cindy Heston, corporate travel manager worldwide at Thomson Multimedia, referring to the fact that all US Airways fares now are in those GDSs. "We need everything in one system--I don't care where. Travel managers need to say this is the direction we want to go." Asked about the possibility of financial incentives from airlines or other players to support a particular GDS pricing model, she said, "To me it's not about money, it's about a simplistic solution."
Indianapolis-based Thomson is in the unique position of being a customer of the key players now trying to reinvent GDS economics: its preferred carriers include Northwest and US Airways, its GDS services come from Worldspan and its agency is TQ3 Maritz, which is piloting American's EveryFare program
(BTN, Oct. 7).