An Amadeus executive Wednesday told BTN the company's
announcement that it has started piloting booking of ancillary services with
one European airline and launched an unbundling fulfillment capability for
another "lays the foundations" for building further capabilities. The
travel technology giant is piloting a shopping and booking facility with the
small French airline Corsairfly that can be used both on the carrier's website
and by travel agents through global distribution systems. Meanwhile, Finnair
has become the first airline to issue, store, manage and distribute electronic
miscellaneous documents—the equivalent of e-tickets for ancillary services—using
Amadeus technology.
"It is very significant because this is the
infrastructure you need to market ancillary services," said Cyril Tetaz,
head of marketing for airline distribution with Amadeus. "This lays the
foundations for building the process end to end."
Corsairfly is a long-haul leisure carrier owned by the leisure
giant TUI. Tetaz said the shopping and booking facility, called Amadeus
Ancillary Services, will allow consumers to book through a graphic catalogue
display in a style familiar to Internet shoppers. Airlines will be able to use
the AAS technology to file unbundled fees either directly through Amadeus or
via ATPCo, the system that supplies fare data to all major airfare pricing
engines. ATPCo is used by around 500 airlines.
Amadeus also said Finnair has been using its EMD Server since
June 1. However, although the Finnish flag carrier now is ready to issue EMDs,
which are the industry-standard accountable fulfillment documents for ancillary
services, the travel industry has not yet completed work on enabling travel
agents to receive them through GDSs.
A timetable of the third quarter of 2010 long has been targeted
for achieving this goal, but there have been numerous suggestions in recent
weeks that the date will slip. Tetaz told BTN Amadeus will begin piloting EMDs
with agency customers in November, adding that much will depend on the
readiness of each national billing and settlement plan to handle EMDs. "BSP
readiness varies on a market-by-market basis, just as was the case with
e-ticketing," he said.