Southwest's long-anticipated move to the Amadeus Altea
reservation system, which went live on May 9, will enable the carrier to have
more flexibility in flight scheduling and provide it with more opportunities to
sell ancillary products.
Southwest and Amadeus worked in tandem over the course of
three years to transition the airline's patchwork of reservation systems,
including the Navitaire system that Southwest inherited from Airtran during the
companies' 2014 merger.
Southwest began operating international flights through
Amadeus Altea in 2014. But until this month the carrier continued to run
domestic operations through its original Cowboy system, which had been adopted
from the long-defunct Braniff International Airways.
Cowboy had limitations that might surprise many, considering
that Southwest has grown into the largest U.S. airline in terms of domestic
passengers. Notably, the system didn't have the capability to book flights that
lasted over two different dates, thereby ruling out overnight flights.
The new system makes overnight flights a possibility. It
also enables Southwest to vary its schedule through the week. Under Cowboy,
Southwest had to maintain the same flight schedule during weekdays and Sundays,
but the carrier can now add extra frequencies as needed.
Equally as significant, the Amadeus Altea system will enable
Southwest to offer ancillary products. The carrier said it plans to do so but
that it won't begin charging bag fees.
Aviation industry analyst Bob Mann of R.W. Mann & Co.
said it remains to be seen whether the carrier would begin red-eye flights.
"They already have high utilization," he said of
the company's aircraft. "Ultimately it will come down to whether they can
make commercial use of the time or if they're better off using it for service
and maintenance."
Southwest said in an email that the new reservation system
will also offer several other enhancements helpful to travelers.
It should allow the carrier to optimize flight scheduling, thereby
improving the typical connection time for transferring flyers and improve the
company's ability to manage standby flyers. It allows for automatic rebookings
during times of irregular operations, such as major storms.
The system also offers efficiency improvements for travel
agencies that book Southwest tickets through the GDS.
"Agencies can now include at ticketing the customer's
Rapid Reward numbers, eliminating the need to call Southwest Reservations,"
the company said in an email last week. "Additionally, Southwest Airlines
is also returning the full e-ticket number in GDS reservations at ticketing.
Prior to this change, travel agencies received only a pseudo ticket number in
the passenger name record.
"Both of these changes help reduce ticketing and back
office reconciliation work for travel agencies."
Chris Dane, president of the Hickory Global Partners
consortium of travel management companies, said the changes will be helpful for
companies that book Southwest corporate travel through the GDS. But he noted
that larger TMCs typically book Southwest either through BookingBuilder
software or SWABiz, Southwest's free corporate online booking tool.
"For a smaller user, it's a big improvement," Dane
said.
Leisure agents said they don't expect the ticketing-procedure
changes detailed by Southwest to make much difference, in large part because
they mainly book Southwest flights in direct channels or through operators such
as Funjet or Southwest Vacations.
Mann said he sees potential advantages for travel agents
beyond the ones mentioned by Southwest. The Amadeus Altea system, he said,
should give Southwest the option of offering agencies last-seat availability
through the GDS. As such, agencies would see the precise remaining inventory on
each flight, rather than a cache of set-aside seats, as was the case under the
Cowboy system.
However, Susan Hakenjos, the general manager of Brentwood
Travel in the St. Louis area, where Southwest has a sizeable presence, said she
worries that greater functionality for Southwest could have at least one
downside for flyers and travel agents. The new system, she said, makes it
easier for the carrier to cancel flights that had been loaded for sale.
"They are able to add flights and take flights away
very easily, whereas before it was kind of in granite, so when they put in
their availability it had to stay that way," Hakenjos said.