Inside Track: Bankruptcy Court Okays Northwest Exit

A bankruptcy court judge last week gave the nod to Northwest Airlines' reorganization plan, keeping the carrier on track to emerge from Chapter 11 protection this summer. The carrier now must gain the approval of its shareholders and gain exit financing. In addition, a federal court last week upheld a lower court ruling that forbids Northwest flight attendants from striking, shielding the carrier from a blow to its operations. Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines last week filed its application to list new common stock on the New York Stock Exchange in early May, following its exit in late April.

British Airways Signs Sabre To Full-Content Deal
British Airways and Sabre last week announced a three-year distribution agreement that guarantees full content to subscribers. The deal represents the second GDS agreement BA has signed following the expiration of content deals in late February, the first being with Galileo. Sabre subscribers based in the United Kingdom and Ireland must elect to join the global distribution system's opt-in program to be shielded from BA's £3 per-segment surcharges for reservations booked through nonpreferred channels beginning April 10. "Agents outside of the U.K. and Ireland will have access to full content without the requirement of an opt-in program," a Sabre spokesperson said. Sabre said it would further detail its opt-in program to subscribers in the United Kingdom "shortly."

Advisors Boost Four Seasons Buyout Deal
Two independent voting advisory services have recommended that shareholders approve a transaction that would take Four Seasons Hotels private this month. Both the Institutional Shareholder Services of Canada and Glass Lewis last week came out in favor of the buyout offer by Microsoft head Bill Gates' Cascade Investments, Saudi mogul Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud's Kingdom Hotels International and current Four Seasons CEO Isadore Sharp. Shareholders will meet regarding the offer on April 5.

CWT To Go 24/7 At Central China Call Center
The national call center in the inland Chinese city of Meishan that Carlson Wagonlit Travel, working with client General Electric, opened last summer will become a 24-hour call center in the second quarter of this year. CWT, which last year had $118 million in sales as part of a joint venture with China Air Services, plans by the end of 2007 to handle 70 percent of its Chinese phone reservations via the center, where it plans to double the 50 people it currently employs. "Real estate and labor rates in Beijing and Shanghai are too expensive," said CWT president and CEO Hubert Joly. "So our team said, 'Let's move to the center of the country.' " The company last year also launched the CWT Trip bilingual online booking tool for domestic travelers in China. The tool supports TravelSky, the only authorized global distribution system for air tickets in China.

AirPlus Unveils Custom Invoicing
AirPlus International, the world's largest issuer of the Universal Air Travel Program, last week introduced a customizable invoicing tool for its clients. An AirPlus spokeswoman said an unspecified number of customers already are using the FlexEbill tool. The FlexEbill tool lets users design their own preferred formats for billing information through the AirPlus Business Travel Portal. AirPlus said a company can arrange invoice field information into a desired format and add or change those fields at any time. The tool requires no changes to internal interfaces. "Corporate account departments will use FlexEbill to design the exact format in which they will receive the AirPlus electronic billing statement, which can be directly integrated into their accounting system," AirPlus president Richard Crum said in a prepared statement.

Amex Research Shows Air, Hotel, Car Rate Hikes
American Express this week said international airfares in 2006 jumped 5.8 percent from 2005, representing the highest fares paid since they began monitoring them. Amex research also showed domestic airfares hitting a three-year high. Despite high occupancy and limited supply of hotel rooms in key U.S. cities, Amex noted only a 3 percent year-over-year increase in average domestic booked hotel rates in 2006, a softer increase than those noted by Smith Travel Research, which reported a 7 percent increase in room rates in its full-year report, released earlier this year (BTN, Feb. 5). American Express Advisory Services also reported, however, that budget-tier hotel rates had increased by 19 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006 compared with the same period in 2005. International hotel rates were up 8.5 percent in 2006 over 2005, the travel management company said. Average daily car rental rates for business increased by 4.5 percent from 2005, Amex reported.