BCD Travel on Thursday announced a letter of intent to use the Amadeus One platform as the foundation for a new agency desktop it plans to deploy to select agents in the United States next year. BCD is the largest agency to embrace Amadeus One, joining other early adopters Balboa Travel and launch client Travel Leaders.
Amadeus and BCD still are in discussions as to the scope of BCD's use of the new desktop and the degree of customization the travel management company will require. BCD, however, has decided that Amadeus One system would serve as the "baseline" for a new system that will replace tools "used by central service groups based in North America, such as BCD Travel's central fulfillment and after-hours teams."
For those agents, the new platform will replace a set of other tools that make up its largely homegrown desktop platform, BCD Travel senior vice president April Bridgeman said.
"I wouldn't say it's a majority of our agents by any stretch, but it is a rather large operation for us," Bridgeman said of the agents who will transition to the new system. "We are just in the early phases." BCD and Amadeus still must finalize the contract and build out the technology before getting it out to agents, she said.
"We're building it for the U.S. initially," said Vic Pynn, executive vice president of Amadeus Americas, "and BCD is going to decide if that's going to be 10 percent of their desktops or 90 or 100 percent. Right now, we're in the process of defining what they want for the future, where we start with this and what makes sense for BCD's business."
Depending on the level of customization and extent of deployment, Pynn said he expects BCD to take the system live in the first half of next year. Travel Leaders, meanwhile, is expected to be the first to go live with the Amadeus One platform, Pynn said, with piloting slated to begin in the back half of this year.
In addition to Balboa, BCD and Travel Leaders, Pynn said, "We have some very good discussions going with several others."
Amadeus and its global distribution system competitors for years have been
developing the next generation of agency workspaces that largely scrap the cryptic green-screen environment in favor of graphical user interfaces, while bringing more functionality to the point of sale.
Sabre this week
unveiled the Sabre Red Workspace, while Travelport expects to
launch its Universal Desktop this summer.