Garber Travel today announced it has partnered with and fully implemented alternate distribution provider ITA Software for all United Airlines bookings. Garber is the first corporate travel management company to publicly announce its use of ITA for distribution services. ITA, like G2 SwitchWorks and FareLogix, is building a distribution platform that major U.S. airlines have said offers more compelling economic arrangements than traditional global distribution system models.
Joan Kaplan, executive vice president of Chestnut Hill, Mass.-based Garber, said the company last week started live ticketing. Garber forged a relationship with ITA just prior to United's announcement of a shared savings program that encourages the carrier's top agency partners to pursue alternate distribution systems
(BTNonline, Jan. 21).
United this spring said three unidentified TMCs had begun booking tickets through ITA
(BTN, May 16). United customer Agilent Technologies also said it had signed on with ITA
(BTN, June 20), and plans to begin ticketing tests next month, according to global travel sourcing manager Tim Bone.
"The benefit to us now is that United is a great partner and booking through ITA helps them reduce their distribution costs," said Garber's Kaplan. "If I book my United segments through ITA, they pay less than if I do it through the GDS."
Though transparent to corporate clients--and fully integrated within the agency's back-office reporting systems--the ITA implementation will improve Garber's ability to serve its 530 corporate accounts over time, Kaplan explained. "This will give us the quickness to be able to reach more information, provide every option to our customers, and to be in a better position to negotiate our next contracts and influence pricing."
Still, Kaplan said the agency is maintaining a healthy relationship with GDS partner Sabre, as the content available through ITA remains limited. "We got together with Sabre before the implementation and they agreed that we need to have all the information out there to make the best decisions for our clients," she said. "We have enough segments on our Sabre agreement that we can do this. We're only doing it with one airline and it doesn't interfere with our Sabre contract."
As such alternate distribution systems as ITA software start gaining traction in the corporate travel and agency marketplaces, the threat of new entrants may become real to the existing GDSs. "In my opinion, it seems like the GDS will make an offer to participate with these new companies," said Kaplan. "I expect, though have not been told, that Sabre, as it has in the past, may acquire companies with similar interests."