Orbitz To Challenge GetThere In Addition To Travelocity

The growth of Chicago-based Orbitz is dependent on the company's ability to "broaden the appeal of our Web site to business and other travelers," partly by "allowing corporations and their preferred suppliers to automatically integrate their negotiated fares and rates into our matrix display so corporate users with a valid passcode will have the option to choose among their corporate fares, published fares and Web-only fares available to the general public," according to the company's registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering, filed yesterday.

The statement clearly is a challenge to established corporate self-booking vendors, including GetThere, many of which are owned by the four major global distribution systems.

Harking back to comments recently made by its CEO--former head of Sabre Jeff Katz--Orbitz went on to state that it will secure "arrangements with airlines so bookings made through Orbitz are credited to corporate volume discount agreements" and introduce business traveler-friendly features already in place with such competitors as Expedia and Sabre's Travelocity and GetThere. Among the possible new functionalities are seat maps, ticket cancellation and exchange capabilities--and a travel arranger feature that allows one person to book for multiple travelers.

"Future enhancements to our car rental offering may include improving the customer's ability to coordinate car rental and airline ticket reservations and allowing the consumer to book corporate discounts," Orbitz officials added, with reference to its goal of diversifying bookings among non-air travel vendors.

The company last month hired former American Airlines managing director of corporate products Rick Weber to head Orbitz's business travel services.

Orbitz also referred to its plans for non-GDS bookings via its supplier link technology initiative--a more direct challenge to GDSs. "We believe this initiative can reduce distribution costs to the airlines, while increasing our profitability," Orbitz stated. Worldspan has a multi-year contract to back Orbitz "for bookings on suppliers that do not have direct-connect agreements with the site." CEO Paul Blackney earlier this month said that for Worldspan "there will be a substantial piece for a long time to come. No direct bookings are being made yet."

Orbitz also made reference to credit cards as new "travel-related growth initiatives." A company spokesperson was unavailable immediately to elaborate.

Meanwhile, Orbitz said its net revenues in 2001 totaled $43.4 million, while net losses were $103.2 million. The company said it booked more than $800 million in travel in 2001.