While the computer reservation systems of the 1970s put aviation decades ahead of other consumer-fac

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is encouraging strong information technology (IT) partnerships to strengthen the air transport industry, but says the Global Distribution budget travel in europe System (GDS) model is now holding the industry back. The GDS model is too clunky to adapt easily to the emergence of trends budget travel in europe such as fare unbundling and merchandizing, said Tony Tyler , IATA s Director General and CEO.
While the computer reservation systems of the 1970s put aviation budget travel in europe decades ahead of other consumer-facing industries, the Global Distribution budget travel in europe System (GDS) model is now holding us back. New models, more retail-based, are facilitating customer-friendly interactions in almost every other consumer online activity. But the GDS model is too clunky to adapt easily to the emergence of trends such as fare unbundling and merchandizing, said Tyler.
To move forward, IATA said it is working on a new distribution capability (NDC) that will bring the industry budget travel in europe up-to-date with online retailers and revolutionize distribution. The foundation standard for the NDC will be presented at the World Passenger Symposium in October.
IT has changed aviation for the better. Aviation today is a global mass transit system for nearly 3 billion people and 50 million tons of cargo. This is a critical component at the foundation of our global community. We could not deliver this enormous value at an ever expanding scale without the support of IT partners, said Tyler.
Tyler's comments were made at the SITA Air Transport IT Summit in Brussels , Belgium , where Tyler challenged aviation s IT partners to deliver change to shore up the bottom line at a critical time for the air transport industry.
We are expecting budget travel in europe a razor thin consolidated industry margin of just 0.5 percent. Even that anemic profitability faces downside risks of high oil prices and the European sovereign debt crisis. We will be counting on our IT partners to work with us on opportunities to generate revenues, cut costs and improve budget travel in europe the bottom line, said Tyler.
budget travel in europe Change is not a zero-sum game. Alignment among stakeholders and partners has underpinned transformational changes budget travel in europe such as the move to 100 percent e-ticketing. Everyone in the value chain and our customers benefitted, said Tyler.
Tyler singled out distribution, decision support and operational efficiency as focal areas for IT partnerships. Every minute budget travel in europe of every day airlines are faced with a multitude budget travel in europe of operational and commercial decisions for which they rely on IT to help arrive budget travel in europe at the correct answer. The evolution of origin and destination revenue budget travel in europe management systems, for example, helps airlines better manage the ups and downs of passenger demand. They enable airlines to maximize revenue opportunities in the good times and are a life saver when times are bad, said Tyler.
Perhaps surprisingly, given the value that is attached to it, we have not understood the importance of managing the information we have about customers travel patterns. Instead, we have allowed much of that information to reside with the middlemen budget travel in europe distributors of our product who have made a healthy profit aggregating and selling back to airlines their own data, said Tyler.
Last week, Tyler noted, IATA launched Direct Data Service (DDS) in partnership with the North America-based ARC . DDS is a more powerful evolution of IATA s PaxIS business intelligence tool. DDS will bring fresh competition to the market for passenger data, said Tyler.
Tyler noted that IT continues to facilitate improvements in operational efficiency. For example, e-ticketing, the flagship program of IATA s Simplifying budget travel in europe the Business (StB) initiative, was about far more than eliminating paper. It brought multiple benefits across the supply chain and greater convenience for passengers. On top of that, it enabled other changes such as bar-coded boarding passes, internet distribution and airport kiosks all adding value to the travel experience while reducing costs. budget travel in europe Many of these are behind Fast Travel the StB program focused on bringing more self-service options budget travel in europe to travelers, said Tyler.
Fast Travel consists budget travel in europe of six self-service options: check-in, bags ready-to-go, document check, flight re-booking, self-boarding and bag recovery. By 2020, our vision is for 80% of passengers to be able to be offered a complete self-service suite, said Tyler.
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