Within the next week, the airline industry will deploy a new ATPCO tool that enables airlines to relax restrictions on already-issued tickets.
The Emergency Flexibility tool, set to be adopted by the airline industry on June 7, is an automated method for changing rules around ticket changes, enabling tickets bought prior to the Covid-19 crisis to be updated to comply with newer rules regarding change fee waivers and validity periods. ATPCO worked with more than 60 airlines and the major global distribution systems to develop it.
"What it's doing is allowing airlines to communicate Covid-19 policies and have it be automated and consistent across all channels," ATPCO head of standards and governance David Smith said.
The automation also will ensure agents and travelers can understand the flexibility rules put in place by different airlines without having to do the manual work of going through their policies, he said. It will be complemented by ATPCO's recently introduced "reassurance" metric, that provides information regarding flexibility as well as information on sanitization methods employed by airplanes at the time of booking.
Delta Air Lines managing director of commercial delivery and development Sara Reid said the work goes alongside that being done at airlines, including extending ticket databases to ensure that tickets do not expire.
"We had to work across all parties," Reid said. "The volume of unused tickets is unprecedented, so we're all about customer flexibility and as much automation as possible for our industry partners."
All major GDSs, including Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport and Travelsky, plan to go live with the tool within the next week, according to ATPCO.