GDS

How do you interpret your appointment as Head of Corporate Travel for Sabre in France? Cédric Lefort - It reflects a real desire to move forward in the French market and to grow, in particular by investing in sales staff. One of my first priorities is to recruit 'hunters' to make acquisitions. Read more...

Launch of a new corporate programme 10 September sees the launch of our new offer for companies of all sizes. The programme is harmonised across all routes in our new extended network. Depending on annual expenditure, companies can benefit from exclusive advantages such as negotiated fares, individual management and...

How would you describe the upturn in business travel? Bertrand Poey - The recovery is good if we look at the overall IATA figures, we are at around 95% compared with 2019. For the French market, the airlines are forecasting that October will see a return to the same period in...

Faced with rising fares in the business travel sector, players are trying to get organised. This is particularly true in the air travel sector, where significant increases are expected on a number of strategic business travel routes, as illustrated by the recent Air Monitor 2023 report published by Amex GBT. Its competitor has now...

Sabre recently acquired virtual card leader Conferma. HRS, for its part, has set its sights on the Paypense platform. Amadeus has also taken up the subject with the creation of Outpayce. Is having its own payment offering becoming strategic for a travel industry player like Amadeus? Jean-Christophe Lacour - Yes,...

Already long-standing partners, business travel agency BCD Travel and GDS Sabre intend to jointly accelerate their technological evolution through joint investment in the development of innovative solutions. "Today marks a new milestone in our partnership, as we mutually commit to contributing to the technological evolution of...

At the start of the 2022 season, which the IFTM Top Resa will be marking for good on 20 September, Amadeus is balancing prudence and optimism on a business travel market that is still convalescing. "We've learned to be cautious over the last two years, but overall we're seeing an acceleration in the recovery in the second quarter", confided Bertrand Poey...

Sabre, one of the world's leading airline ticket reservation companies, has terminated its distribution agreement with Russian airline Aeroflot. The announcement was officially made on Thursday 3 March. This decision means that the Russian national carrier will no longer be available on the reservation terminals of travel agencies. But also...

As the 40th IFTM Top Resa prepares to open its doors on 25 September, Amadeus, the show's long-standing partner, is playing its cards close to its chest. The technology giant's new asset is called Amadeus Travel Platform, which is designed to broaden the range of content and diversify sources. The aim is to adapt to the major trends in the market, and in particular to the...

A few days after the GDS tax came into force within the Air France KLM group on 1 April, Expedia has reacted. On Wednesday, the travel giant announced that it had reached an agreement with the Air France KLM group. This agreement, which also benefits Egencia customers, means that they will not be impacted by this new GDS surcharge:...

The news could have passed unnoticed, camouflaged as it was at the bottom of the page of a press release devoted to Air France-KLM's quarterly results... However, it marks a new turning point in relations between distribution systems and airlines. The paragraph in question states: "In order to adapt to changes in the market and...

"Are you NDC ready?" was the question posed by GBTA France at the opening of its MasterClass event on 6 July. It's a tough question to avoid, because behind these three letters lies perhaps the biggest revolution in the sector since the advent of low-cost airlines. The new NDC standard -...

The 'direct connect' sales policy adopted by the Lufthansa group in September 2015 is being emulated. Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) has decided to adopt the same model, unveiling on 14 April the introduction of a new fee on bookings made through a GDS (Global Distribution Systems). ever-increasing GDS costs...

How do you see the evolution of new technologies, particularly in the world of travel? Wade Jones - With mobile devices, the spread of intelligent technologies, from smartphones to autonomous cars, all the data circulating is helping to improve the user experience. By 2020, it is estimated that 85% of customer interactions will be carried out...

When will the new Sabre Red Workspace platform arrive, and what will it change? Ludovic Philippo - Sabre Red Workspace will be launched globally early next year. The platform is already being tested by some 300 agencies. We're making available to them all the work we've done over the last few years on APIs and webservices. It's...