Amadeus, the Madrid-based global GDS, announced details of an upgraded platform that, it said, will give airlines the tools to clearly differentiate their products and so more effectively sell their unique services through travel agents.
For the agents' part, the vendor said, they will be better equipped to perform as true counselors because it will be easier to find the right product-and-fare combinations for each client.
Called the Amadeus Airline Retailing Platform, the system will be implemented in phases over a two-year period beginning in May. It will be available to all Amadeus agent subscribers worldwide and to all others who use Amadeus, including Amadeus-hosted airlines, said Robert Buckman, the GDS' vice president of airline distribution. In the first phase, Amadeus screens will include automatic prompts, banners and flight features.
An automatic prompt is a highlighted piece of relevant and promotable information about a particular flight, which the agent can discuss at point of sale. It is not a reminder to perform a specific function but, nevertheless, may facilitate upselling and cross-selling, the vendor said.
The banners are what the word suggests, also a way to highlight specific pieces of marketable information about a carrier's product. And flight features, in this context, Buckman said, refer to graphic illustrations of in-flight service components, such as seat pitch, the seats themselves and onboard entertainment.
Beginning in 2009, the vendor said, it will add fare families, product attributes, tools for selling optional services and enhanced upselling capabilities.
Fare families refers to situations where airlines bundle a number of services as part of a specific branded product, Buckman said. Those types of fares will be in the principal availability displays.
Product attributes, he continued, refer to anything a carrier wants to unbundle, such as the number of checked bags, advance seat assignments or applicability of frequent flyer miles. Or, product attributes could include the option to buy access to an airport lounge or "rule busters," meaning the option to buy insurance to protect against loss if it becomes necessary to change or cancel a restricted ticket, Buckman said.
The idea, he said, is to get all this variety in front of agents where they can mix and match based on client need and, hence, make it possible for airlines to merchandise services through intermediaries as they do now at their own Web sites.
Although Amadeus content and options may change significantly, agents will be working with evolved versions of the current platform, said Owen Wild, director of marketing for Amadeus in North America. Therefore, he said, Amadeus does not see a need for additional agent training.
Airlines have to sign up to use the new platform, and Buckman predicted, "many carriers" will do so, especially after seeing the results of an Amadeus study of the experiences of eight carriers that launched similar merchandising techniques on their Web sites. He said those carriers experienced a 30% hike in revenue and an 8% rise in yield.
Wild said the availability of the Amadeus Airline Retailing Platform would allow other airlines to consider moving in the same direction, as well.
There's something else for carriers, too. Although agents have used a GUI (graphical user interface) to work with Amadeus for a decade, Wild said, airlines have continued with the legacy green screens. Now, they, too, will have a GUI. Buckman declined to discuss extra fees airlines might pay to utilize the retailing platform, saying only that "any airline would see a certain value in increased yields."
Meanwhile, the Amadeus announcement came only days after Farelogix announced it was offering a customizable flight and fare merchandising capability for airlines that distribute over its selling platform.
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