Three Amadeus-hosted airlines next month will take live on their Web sites an electronic miscellaneous document pilot that eventually will enable greater transparency to corporate travel buyers of a la carte air purchases, an Amadeus executive told attendees at the
Business Travel News/National Business Travel Association Strategic Travel Symposium today in New York.
Though Amadeus director of airline distribution strategy Robert Buckman would not disclose which carriers would go live on their Web sites next month, he told attendees today, "We have three major carriers already in pilot that will be coming out of pilot at the end of this month and going into production launch in April. From an enabling perspective, the GDSs are quite well advanced."
Buckman said those airlines initially would use their EMD offerings through their direct channels, though once bank settlement plans and ARC adopt the EMD process "towards the end of this year," carriers can then begin to transition those offerings to corporate channels.
"Customers that utilize our technology, our platforms, will begin to see pricing transparency of ancillary services later this year," Buckman said.
The International Air Transport Association last year adopted the electronic miscellaneous document format as an industry standard for tracking the sale of a la carte airline offerings, directing carriers to be 100 percent compliant by the end of 2012 and bank settlement plans to be compliant by the end of 2013. The EMD would serve as an e-coupon attached to a specific trip for ancillary purchases like checked baggage, inflight Wi-Fi and lounge access
(BTNonline, Dec. 15, 2009).