Cyril Tetaz
Both Amadeus and Sabre last month announced progress on implementing the electronic miscellaneous document with early-adopting airlines in their direct channels, such as city ticket offices and Web sites. The EMD is a new document, created using International Air Transport Association standards, which eventually will allow travel agencies to sell ancillary airline services. Its development in the industry has been compared with that of the electronic ticket, which took more than a decade to proliferate. Amadeus implemented its EMD Server for Finnair on 1 June. Sabre has initiated the EMD with Latin American carrier Avior. "Amadeus will further extend EMD capability to include Amadeus travel agencies in September and will begin piloting with agents in the Finnish market with Finnair later in the year," the company announced. "A further deliverable for the end of 2010 is the extension of EMD capability to support interlining between airlines hosted on the Amadeus EMD server." At Sabre, the "first phase of enabling EMDs is with Sabre-hosted airlines. The much broader launch of merchandising capabilities via the global distribution system will occur late this year." The Transnationalspoke with Amadeus senior manager for airline distribution Cyril Tetaz about the EMD and the challenges to its implementation globally.
Can you help our readers understand what the EMD is?
The EMD is like an e-ticket for a service, [whether it] has a fee or not. It's that simple. It can be linked to a ticket. A lot of airlines offer nonchargable services, such as an infant seat or a vegetarian meal, for which you are going to ask your agent for a special service request. In the distribution system, we have a workflow to enable the agency to propose an SSR, to book it as part of the passenger name record and then to fulfill it--to have a document that enables you to prove you have booked it and, most importantly, to let the airline know that the service has been requested. So it's a communication through the reservation system that the travel agent or airline agent is using so that the inventory system of the airline, and the booking system, can replicate and maintain the information that a service has been booked. Some of these services are quota-based, so you can only have so many on a flight. You already have a process existing, called a miscellaneous charge order (MCO) or a virtual MCO, which acts as proof you have contracted (though not purchased) these SSRs. The difference now, which is material and requires new development, is that you have a price associated with this. There are concerns about the security of collecting money with an MCO. They were not developed for that.
Why do airlines need the EMD in their direct channels?
A lot of airlines try to look at [EMD] from a long-term perspective. If you want to bring efficiencies to your processes, you want standard solutions across all channels as much as possible. The truth is, for a lot of these airlines talking to us about the implementation, it may be easier to start using EMD in the channel they control because they can fine-tune and polish processes before expanding them to indirect distribution. So the benefit is that the direct channel enables them to pilot the fulfillment part using EMD, while continuing to use the MCO in the indirect channel for a short period of time. It may be, as well, that Billing and Settlement Plan certification takes a bit longer in the travel agency channel because you need the BSP to be ready to work with the EMD in a neutral fashion; whereas in the direct channel of the airline, the EMD is issued on airline stock so they control the stock and the authorization to issue the EMD. So, it's about efficiency, and you have to start somewhere.
What will it take for travel management companies to use the EMD?
Besides the [BSP] market requirements, the feedback we're getting from the Finnair airline agents--and this is feedback from Finnair airline ticket offices and city ticket offices--which use the same platform as the agencies--is that it's very straightforward and seamless. The fulfillment process is pretty much the same. [There are] a lot of benefits attached to EMD in terms of security, the capacity to track, etc. From a process standpoint, the fulfillment is very similar to issuing the MCO. From an adoption standpoint, it doesn't require a lot of training. What will be required is a midoffice and back office capable of accepting and integrating these EMDs. With ancillary services, you will need some special development to accept those and be capable of integrating them in the mid- and back office. Typically the distribution systems issue an interface record to the midoffice and back office. We released a specification at the beginning of this year for a new interface record so the mid- and back-office players could develop against the specification and manage the ancillary services and the EMDs.
Where are the BSPs in this process?
The BSP process is really country-specific. We are collecting that information right now. We put a lot of effort on the pieces of technology that will deliver 80 percent [of the services]--which for us is the core reservation capabilities and the fulfillment ones. And once you have ticked that box, and you might pilot it, you have to focus on the other enablers. BSP readiness is a key, and we're working to collect that information.
What comes next?
The multi-channel aspect. We have a roadmap of development to facilitate sales through the e-Travel Management self-booking tool. We're looking at mobile as well. We can talk about standards, but the first part is the capacity to make it easy for the agents. We have tried to enable a seamless integration into the agent workflow. They know how to order a veggie meal. So the simple vision is to say that as long as we match that process as much as possible, then we should have adoption. How do you do that? The complexity is about enabling them to quote a price. In the beginning, a lot of airlines will focus on their home markets to test the waters, but imagine three or four years down the road, where you've got a lot of airlines unbundling a lot of services for a lot of routes ... for an agent, it might be very complex to understand what is for sale.