Enhanced Airline Packaging: The Effect on Your Travel Policy and Display in the Corporate Online Booking Tools

One gets the feeling these days that the US airline marketing departments are reaching their creative zenith. American Airlines is the latest carrier to enter the fray with their ‘Choice’ suite (Choice, Choice Essential and Choice Plus). For the travelling public, this could offer a cheaper alternative. One thing is definitelyfor sure. Such packaging clearly adds complexity to both the TMC’s and company Travel Managers. There is one essential question one has to pose though with all this development?

We all know about the difficulties the GDS’s have been confronted with through such packaging, but what about the Corporate OBT’s? Inevitably, different fare classes need to be offered within GDS to reflect the respective ‘packages’ , but what about the capability of the OBT’s to

• Display these fares properly within the display to the travel booker (traveller or aranger)?
• Properly reflect this different packages in conjunction with a corporate travel policy?

We at TravelBrain have been confronted with many an example where the Corporate Online Booking Tools scramble to keep up with the market changes, only to never be properly reflected in the configuration of the individual corporate sites. We would be keen to hear from you about your experience tied to these developments as we believe the bespoke problem is either already here or is a problem in waiting.

All is not lost thought. We can be thankful that there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, which sets a natural barrier for our airline brethren…

We from TravelBrain wish you and yours a very merry Christmas and a successful 2013.

The TravelBrain Team