Continental Airlines in the "coming months" will provide to American Express customers booking and tracking of Web-only and all other publicly available fares through the Amex TravelBahn network.
In announcing the arrangement during last month's Association of Corporate Travel Executives conference in Las Vegas, American Express North America Corporate Travel executive vice president Pam Arway said the deal is similar to one signed last year with American Airlines. At the time, AA and Amex officials declined to describe how the program shaved the carrier's $400 million global distribution system costs
(BTN, Nov. 21, 2002). An Amex spokesperson said the company would be similarly mum on the new Continental deal.
Some sources have likened the AA-Amex agreement with AA's EveryFare program, which puts downward pressure on GDS costs with the help of key distributors
(BTN, Sept. 27, 2002)."TQ3 and Amex are two of the megas that have signed up for EveryFare," said TQ3 Travel Solutions Americas CEO Jack O'Neill at ACTE. "AA, in its pricing philosophy, is choosing to discount some unrestricted fares, like 5 percent to 7 percent off Q fares, as well as Ls and Ns."
"Availability of Web fares will be phased in over the coming months and will continue through the rest of the year," Amex stated in the Continental announcement. AA fares already are available to Amex clients, said Arway.
According to a statement from Continental, which recently joined United and US Airways in Galileo's distribution cost-saving program, Momentum
(BTN, April 28), Amex's "new technology helps us achieve two very important objectives; significantly lowering our distribution costs and improving our product and fare offering to corporate customers." Continental referred to an enhancement to Amex's TravelBahn that the agency said "gives Continental the opportunity to reduce its distribution costs and provide customers with full access to all Continental public fares."
TravelBahn will replicate and expand on functions available in traditional GDS configurations
(BTN, July 29, 2002). It is an architecture that already includes a worldwide network that connects to all GDSs and a proprietary agent interface thus far in use by two clients. Other components include Super PNR technology and a corporate client portal.
Continental's fares will become available later this year as part of TravelBahn DS, or Distribution Solution.
Amex has stated 2003 non-critical technology spending on initiatives, which, said CFO Gary Crittenden, "help us competitively if we can execute on them this year" but do not pose a disadvantage if not, could be in jeopardy if the company's ongoing record profits are squeezed by less savory market conditions. Arway said the company is committed to the TravelBahn infrastructure.
"Standardization across the network is something I'm very passionate about," Arway said. "It is critical technology now because it's the future of how we see the industry functioning. We have heavily invested in the network during two of the worst years for the travel industry."