SIDESTEP plans to introduce a dedicated
cruise section next week through a partnership with NLG's
CruisesOnly, and Carnival Cruise Lines welcomed the move. Carnival
is one of the major lines that participates in CruisesOnly, which
says it is the largest cruise agency in the U.S. When SideStep's
cruise section is operational on its U.S. and European sites, users
will be able to research destinations, cruise lines, the length of
cruise, ship details and star ratings; view images; and then book
cruises at CruisesOnly.com or through the cruise agency's phone
agents. SideStep users who navigate from the SideStep cruise
section to CruisesOnly will not have to pay the CruisesOnly booking
fee, a SideStep spokeswoman said. Unlike SideStep's other travel
verticals, the cruise section searches one Web site only,
CruisesOnly.com, although SideStep CEO Rob Solomon said the company
would also like to establish direct relationships with the lines
and incorporate searches of their Web sites into the cruise
section. SideStep would be the first travel search engine to offer
an integrated cruise section, although Yahoo's Kelkoo in Europe and
the Asia-Pacific region offers cruises through a link to partner
Traveltradex.
DELTA'S ongoing Chapter 11 proceeding not
only shook up creditors but triggered an unprecedented exodus of
key technical employees to such companies as Home Depot and
Electronic Data Systems as the airline mulled outsourcing hundreds
of technical jobs. And, in 2005, the attrition led to spikes in
incidents of severe technology meltdowns. In fact, such system
failures rose 10% in 2005, and the average response time increased
25% in the previous year. For example, on Oct. 27, 2005, the system
that provides airline revenue managers with the data they need to
competitively price individual flight segments went down for 12
hours and 29 minutes, according to Delta. The airline said the
outage of this Origination and Destination Market Network
Integrator System cost it some $4 million in lost revenue, and
related flight delays had a price tag of about $38 per minute for
each tardy flight. The implementation of retention and severance
programs to address the brain drain at Delta Technology, a
subsidiary that handles Delta operations like aircraft routing, Web
site infrastructure, the gate agent system and baggage handling,
was cited in the reorganization plan that Delta filed last month.
The document noted that in February 2006 the bankruptcy court
approved retention and severance plans to stem the attrition of
critical IT employees, including managers, at Delta Technology. The
plans, which run until March 2007, or until 60 days after Delta
emerges from bankruptcy, cover 477 of Delta Technology's 1,557
employees and would cost $13.6 million if every eligible employee
received full benefits, Delta said. Without citing specifics, a
Delta Technology spokeswoman last week said the retention and
severance plans were successful and that operations are running
normally.
AMADEUS AND
CONTINENTAL reached a five-year content agreement that
will give Amadeus subscribers in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Virgin Islands access to the airline's publicly available fares
without segment surcharges if they join the Amadeus Content Plus
program, which reduces agency incentives. Continental thus joins
America West, Delta, Northwest, United and US Airways as
participants in Amadeus Content Plus, which launched on Jan. 1.
Amadeus and American are believed to be engaged in negotiations for
a new content agreement. The content includes "all publicly
available fares and inventory offered by Continental without being
subject to airline content surcharges," the companies said. "This
includes published fares that the airline sells through any
third-party Web site and through its own Web site and reservation
offices."
DEAL
PUBLISHER CHEAPFLIGHTS.COM introduced a portal for
advertisers that gives them immediate access to data about view and
click-through rates of the ads they run on the travel Web site. Cheapflights.com, the U.S. branch of the U.K.'s
Cheapflights Ltd., said nearly all its customers, which range from
Spirit and Lufthansa to Travelocity and Priceline, use the Partner
Portal so they can analyze the return on their ad dollars. The
portal, introduced in October and enhanced last month, provides
daily updates, Cheapflights said. The application is Web-based and
password-protected. It enables Cheapflights advertisers to view
their campaigns "from a very top-level view to a very detailed
view," the company stated. Google, Yahoo and Kayak have similar
features for advertisers.
SAPIENT, the Cambridge, Mass.-headquartered
technology provider, revamped the Star Alliance Web site at www.staralliance.com in a 16-week project, the
companies said. The site enables consumers to book trips from and
among alliance members by listing flight information and then
linking to the airlines' Web sites for bookings. "Frequent
travelers have the ability to search for multileg trips across
member airlines and can check flight status across their complete
itinerary," the companies said. "Other new features, such as fast
access to flight schedules and timetables, baggage tracing and
benefits information as well as notifications via e-mail or SMS
[text messages], put high-value international travelers in the fast
lane of online travel management." The alliance includes North
American carriers United, US Airways and Air Canada, among its 18
carrier-members.
Technology
Editor: Dennis Schaal
Phone: (201) 902-1904
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