LOS ANGELES -- Every traveler has a price. But between the fare, the first and second checked-bag fees and the premium seat selection, it's increasingly difficult to tell exactly what that price might be.
A new tool from Sabre, however, will add an airline's unbundled fees to the ticket price, enabling agents and consumers to price-shop itineraries based on the total cost of the ticket and chosen extras.
The technology was previewed here at the annual PhoCusWright conference, but it won't be rolled out until sometime in 2009, said Kyle Moore, Sabre's vice president of product marketing, who ran the presentation here for Sabre.
The demo used a Travel-ocity-style search matrix: A user would check off fee categories in a box in the upper-right side of the screen, after which the search would return different itineraries, showing both the base fare and the total fare, with the charges added in.
For example, a search for flights between Dallas and Salt Lake City returned nonstop flights from Delta and American, each with a base fare of $281. A user who checked "seat selection," "first checked baggage" and "second checked baggage" on the box would see the fare for Delta jump to $306, inclusive of the $25 second-bag fee. For American, the new fare would be $336, including a $15 first-bag fee, a $25 second-bag fee and a $15 seat selection fee.
In a statement, Sabre said the new tool, called Attribute Based Shopping, "allows airlines the ability to fully differentiate their product and service offerings to travel agents and consumers."
The challenge of bringing a la carte options to the GDSs has been accelerated this year as airlines began rapidly unbundling their products. Travelport has a program in place to enable the sale of Air Canada's a la carte purchases.
Travelport's CEO, Jeff Clarke, said in an interview here that the Air Canada program was "an active tool that's an active point of sale. Travelport is working closely with the airlines in coordinating ancillary content, to provide people at point of sale to make these purchases."
Amadeus in April announced the Airline Retailing Platform, which will enable airlines to promote add-ons and aircraft features through a flexible graphical user interface, or GUI. The platform includes an "optional service" feature that enables airlines to unbundle services and sell items separately as value-added options, Amadeus said at the time.
The features for the a la carte platform will be available starting next year, Amadeus spokeswoman Debra Iannaci said.
In a presentation on Nov. 19 at PhoCusWright, Sabre CEO Sam Gilliland called his company's program "game changing."
In most cases, the option to purchase the add-ons is not yet available in Sabre.
"If the a la carte items can be transacted through a GDS, those things would be part of the transaction, like seat fees, a la Midwest Airlines," Sabre's Moore said.
"There are some things the traveler may not pay for at time of booking but that they will want to know for informational purposes as they shop. An example of this would be, perhaps, a baggage fee, as travelers in most cases don't know exactly how many bags they will need at time of booking."
The airlines were unbundling fares "for valid reasons," Moore said after the presentation. Even so, he admitted, "it's made it difficult for consumers to find the itinerary and fare. It's in our interest to make sure we're delivering tools the traveler wants to use."
Even if agents can't book the add-ons themselves, Moore said Sabre's tool would help them by enabling them to price tickets more accurately. "Air travel shopping has become very complex," he said. "Complexity is the friend of the agent."