A group of Swedish travel buyers last week told The Transnationalthat it hopes to use emerging electronic miscellaneous document technology not only to capture ancillary airline fee data for negotiating purposes but also to provide a data platform for breaking down and tracking all cost elements of an air trip. Consisting of large multinational members of the Swedish Business Travel Association, SBTA Global Network has drawn up a list of 24 air travel elements it would like to consolidate in a single management information system.
Network administrator Cathrine Lundberg said top priorities are fuel charges, lounge access, fast-track security, airline rebooking fees, seat reservations, inflight Internet access, ticket refunds and taxes and levies. Fast-track security and lounge access are not necessarily charged by the airline, either within the base fare or through ancillary fees, but might be imposed by airports and other third parties. SBTA Global Network considers the development of EMDs and other ancillary charging mechanisms to be an opportunity to obtain a total trip cost by integrating fees for those services with what corporate customers pay airlines.
"Ancillary charges are a big issue for us, but we are trying to see what opportunities there are to include other things in the negotiated price for large buyers," said Lundberg. "There is an opportunity to package other features independent of who owns them, such as fast-track airport access. If we are going to load all these different services on to the ticket, we have to figure out how to collect them electronically so they can all be shown on our card data."
In the six months it has been working on the project, SBTA Global Network has spoken with airlines and a card company and also wants to talk to airport operators. It also has engaged in dialogue with Amadeus, which is the dominant global distribution system operator in the Nordic region. Amadeus since June has been piloting with Finnair its EMD solution on the airline side of its business, and Lundberg welcomed the last week's announcement that Amadeus will pilot EMD access for travel agents in Finland from the first quarter of 2011. Amadeus claimed the Finnish rollout will make it the first GDS to make the EMD--the equivalent of an e-ticket for additional airline charges--available to travel agents.
Amadeus Scandinavia marketing director Jesper Söderström said he understands the aims of SBTA Global Network. "They fear that more of their expenses are not being included in the cost of a flight and therefore the actual price is not the same as travelers think it is," he said. "They want to get the facts and then gain control. From a corporate point of view, they want to know if they can follow the data and if they can make agreements based on the information. It is like negotiating free Internet access at a hotel. They may tell the airline they want free speedy boarding and half-price for sandwiches. It would give a huge amount of flexibility. Our job as a technology provider is to make this process feasible."
However, before SBTA Global Network's principles become practice, there are several significant hurdles to overcome. Not the least of these is that while Amadeus and other GDSs are starting to make the technology available for corporate clients to book and track ancillary charges through their travel management companies, the airlines need to buy into the process. Even in Finland, the Amadeus EMD laboratory, airline cooperation remains uncertain.
"We haven't receive a lot of information about what airlines will sell through the EMD," said Samuli Sakari, development manager for Area Travel Agency in Helsinki. "Finnair hasn't released any information yet. We are piloting the functionality, not the service itself. The functionality is already there, but what is missing is the services the airlines will put in the system. This is going to be a great opportunity for the airlines, but someone needs to start it."
Amadeus' Söderström acknowledged the problem to The Transnational, adding that some airlines, as has been indicated in the United States, may choose to sell some or all their ancillary services only through direct channels. "The product is there; we need to have the airlines able and wanting to do this," he said. "However, if the GDSs are responsible for 60 percent of their sales, then not making ancillary services available through them is not a good choice."