Sabre and Travelport GDS are working to make Web-based flight performance tracker FlightStats' data available through their global distribution systems. FlightStats, owned by Portland, Ore.-based Conducive Technology Corp., in recent years has gained dozens of travel agency clients and continues its corporate push with an upcoming trip-analysis tool for corporate travel buyers.
Sabre said it is making FlightStats data available to travel management companies and corporations through all channels. The agreement enables travel agents and corporate travelers to view historical on-time performance data at the point of sale, and offers the FlightStats Itinerary Monitoring tool, which provides flight disruption alerts.
Though Travelport GDS would not detail plans, it confirmed it "will be making FlightStats info available to Galileo and Worldspan agents in the near term."
Amadeus, meanwhile, said it is discussions to include FlightStats in its E-Travel online self-booking tool.
Though FlightStats has distributed its services through agency channels for several years, the global distribution system participation further widens its availability.
FlightStats vice president of business development Meara McLaughlin said the company is showcasing three products to the corporate travel industry. In addition to such already-established offerings as historical on-time flight information at the point of sale and the Itinerary Monitoring service, McLaughlin said FlightStats soon would launch its Trip Outcome reporting. The reporting, which FlightStats expects travel management companies to distribute to their corporate customers, examines a corporation's passenger name records for a specified time period and measures the number of delays and cancellations to which a company's travelers were subjected. McLaughlin said the analytical tool measures preferred carrier on-time performance specifically for a company's travelers, as opposed to readily available systemwide data published through the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The tool also tallies the number of man-hours lost as a result of flight disruptions, and provides myriad other ways to "slice and dice the data," she said.
"We're already monitoring the itinerary in real time, but that itinerary that was monitored becomes a matter of record," said FlightStats' McLaughlin. "This will allow you to see what happened last month, for example, on flights you flew. This means buyers can come to the negotiations with third-party validated service parameters. It creates a much more level playing field."
FlightStats plans to make the reports available by the end of the summer.
FlightStats also said it has secured about 50 clients for its Itinerary Monitoring service, including such agencies as Andavo Travel, BCD Travel, Ovation Travel Group and Travel and Transport.
Through the offering, FlightStats sends alerts to corporate travel agents or travel managers by e-mail "whenever one of their monitored travelers is threatened with a missed connection or cancellation." FlightStats said the alerts "give time to intercede on the traveler's behalf for the best chance of reaccommodation or rebooking." Travelers can configure alerts to keep abreast of flight changes by e-mail, personal digital assistants or cell phones.
Andavo Travel was one of the first FlightStats beta testers through the Galileo GDS and has been using the system for nearly a year. The company offers FlightStats as a value-added service to corporate clients, who opt in to allow agents to accommodate ticket changes based on FlightStats delay or flight cancellation information. Agents also use FlightStats to notify travelers of on-time performance at the point of sale. Andavo doesn't charge a fee to clients that opt in. While only dedicated agents are FlightStats-enabled, Andavo president and CEO Brenda Rivers said the "future is that every Andavo agent will be managing FlightStats for all of their customers."
BCD Travel, which began using FlightStats with some clients in 2006
(BTNonline, Sept. 11, 2006), has integrated the application into its TripSource traveler portal, in which travelers can enable flight alert messaging based on FlightStats information. According to BCD executive vice president of products, technology and supplier relations Dee Runyan, BCD's agent desktops eventually will include FlightStats. "The agents today more often than not rely on the global distribution system statistics, which are on one screen," Runyan said.
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