Air Canada
withdrew its Tango fares from the GDSs earlier this month. Marc
Rosenberg, Air Canadas vice president of sales and product
distribution, discussed the move with Dennis Schaal, Travel Weeklys
technology editor.
Q:
You have four-year agreements with Sabre and Galileo, so on what
basis were you able to withdraw Tango fares from those
systems?
A:
Currently we have agreements in place with three of the GDSs
[Sabre, Galileo and Amadeus] that reflect our new business model
environment.
In the highest
level, in each of the agreements, there are elements of content
that historically have been removed before and can be removed, as
we have done in this case, under specific circumstances. We did it
when we launched Tango in Canada.
Q:
So why did you pull the plug this month?
A:
Tango is a fare that competes with low-cost carriers, and in Canada
we are the only carrier with some of the legacy-carrier model and a
lot of new business-model fares and availability. We differentiated
ourselves by responding to the markets appetite for an unbundled
fare with the option of buying up or down.
For example, on
Tango in Canada [flyers] can buy up for seat selection, and they
can buy down by taking advantage of the Go Discount if they dont
check a bag in and therefore get a reduction in price.
Q:
So where do the GDSs fit into your strategy?
A:
At the end of the day the attributes of selling up or down are
technically not available in a GDS environment. They are available
in a Web environment.
Regarding advance
seat selection, we are not satisfied that any of the GDSs have been
able to provide that attribute in their environment, and therefore
Tango is not being displayed to its fullest potential. Those kinds
of attributes are very much a part of Air Canadas strategy in
bringing differentiation into the market and allowing consumers to
really satisfy their own needs on how much they want to spend for a
ticket.
Q:
Arent you losing some of Tangos potential by pulling them out of
the GDSs?
A:
Not in the North American environment, where low-cost carriers
focus on non-GDS distribution. There is enough third-party software
that agents use both in Canada and the U.S. to access content. How
do agents handle carriers like Southwest, for example?
Q:
This cant just be a technical issue, right?
A:
Their inability to display the fare and its attributes have
negative economic consequences to us because you see a fare of $100
on Toronto-Montreal and, as a seller of that fare, you cant
necessarily see that they can buy up to $115 and get an advance
seat selection, or they can buy down to $90 and not check a
bag.
Those kinds of
restrictions impact the decision of the consumer who is simply not
being made aware that for 15 bucks you could have gotten your
advance seat.
Q:
How does all of this relate to the U.S. market?
A:
We offer Tango out of Florida. But Tango Plus solves most of it
because Tango Plus is a low fare that competes with the legacy and
low-cost carriers and offers a lot of the attributes included in
the fare. Tango Plus fares were not removed from the
GDSs.
To contact
reporter Dennis Schaal, send e-mail to [email protected].