AA Going Direct W/ E-Bookers
<B>AA Going Direct W/ E-Bookers</B>
Though the parties involved don't yet know when, American Airlines is planning to go direct. E-Travel last week announced that AA would join Amtrak, Continental, Delta, Hertz, Pegasus Solutions, StarCite and SatoTravel in E-Travel's direct links program. In response to the announcement, GetThere Inc. said AA is planning to participate in its program as well.
With AA, E-Travel will offer access to 42 percent of the available airline seats in the U.S. domestic market, according to year-end 1999 statistics provided to Aviation Daily from GKMG Consulting. GetThere, meanwhile, had previously named Northwest, TWA and United, among others, as participants in its program--totaling 51 percent of domestic seat share with AA.
American also participates in direct connections with Via World Network.
Matt Hausmann, E-Travel's director of partner programs, said there is no timeframe yet for when AA's link will go live. The company is "still working on Delta, but it will be toward the end of the year or the beginning of next year. They've been working out some things on their side, and we just had a call for final scheduling," he said. "It can take a decent amount of work on both sides, though I'd suggest the level of effort is much more weighted toward our side. Our partners end up needing to think about their processes, so it's more than getting programs to talk to each other."
So far, Hertz and Pegasus have connected directly to E-Travel. Amtrak is "in development," and Continental is "in the alpha stage, rolling to beta" soon, said vice president of marketing Bart Littlefield. Hertz is offering E-Travel clients "richer contracts" for the direct connections, he added. Meanwhile, the Pegasus connection is providing more accurate availability and pricing detail on hotel rooms than the GDSs, he said.
Through direct links, airlines can offer to clients inventory and schedule information unfettered by regulation governing the GDSs, said Littlefield. Eventually, the system will provide automated upgrade processing, automated transactions for ticket refunds, exchanges and reissues, streamlined frequent flyer program enrollment and tracking and Web-based checkin, among other items.