They are all fundamentally software platforms to sell airline seats to passengers all over the world. Like any software they keep fixing bugs and upgrading themselves with changing consumer needs and demands, so it is hard to isolate the difference to list them down. However, some broad differences do exist
Market Share – In general Amadeus is the largest GDS however Amadeus is very weak in the US. Sabre is strong in the US and North America but weak everywhere else. Travelport owns both Galileo and Worldspan. Galileo is fast loosing marketshare but used to be large in Europe, Africa, the middle east and Asia.
This is a well known picture of the three GDSs in airline groups.
Founding Airlines – Sabre with American, Australian, JAL et al
Amadeus – Lufthansa, Air France, Iberia, Continental Air, and Scandinavian.
Travelport – Delta, British, KLM, SwissAir, Alitalia, etc. Worldspan and Galileo together.
Customer portals – The three GDS also have a customer portal for end-users. Sabre calls its portal as Virtually There, Amadeus as Check My Trip, while Travelport uses ViewTrip and My Trip and more.
PNR – Sabre PNRs are created with letters from alphabet. Amadeus however uses alpha-numerics. It might not seem significant but the permutations possible increases 7 times (from 26^6 to 36^6).
How do GDS (Sabre, Amadeus, TravelPort) offer best prices than airlines and hotels?
For Example If Kevin wants to book a flight and hotel room, he has 3 general options:
Kevin can book flights and a hotel directly. This is the most time consuming option, but is the simplest and usually the least expensive.
Kevin can use a meta-search engine, like Kayak, and/or an OTA like Expedia, to book. In this case, the hotel/airline pays Expedia a commission for the booking.
Kevin can go to Tad Dubious, his friendly neighborhood travel agent. Kevin tells Tad Dubious what he wants, and Tad Dubious can access the GDS systems using his agency credentials to view wholesale rates. Tad Dubious picks what he thinks Kevin will like best, and puts together a flight/hotel package personally. For this service, the hotel will pay the GDS a fee for the booking, like an OTA, but on top of that Tad Dubious needs his commission for the work done for Kevin. Because there are 2 layers of commission fees, the end result is that Kevin (usually) pays a little bit more at an agency than an OTA.
The reason why Travel Agencies are still around is due largely to business travel. When both the GDS and the consumer (typically a large company that sends a lot of employees on a lot of travel) can warrant bulk discounts, then that will often be less expensive than booking 1-off on an OTA.
Do GDS systems have lower rates? Yes, they can, but it doesn’t really matter to Kevin because, unless he’s a business owner buying rooms and flights in bulk (or a travel agent waives his commission), he won’t be able to take advantage.
Why Do I Need the GDS?
The GDS does have a time and place! Here’s a few reasons why an agent might want/need to use the GDS:
Corporate Travel Agents: Corporate travel agents book a whole lot of air, so the GDS is pretty much a must for them. This can either be a travel agent who books on behalf of corporate clients, or an appointed individual at a corporation who has the capacity to book air for all their employees.
Agents Booking Complex Itineraries: If your specialty is around the world tickets or you have a steady stream of clients with multi-stop itineraries, the GDS will be a necessity.
High Volume Booking of Air-Only Travel: I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what other travel agents other than corporate agents book reeeally high volumes of air. It might be an agent who focuses on booking air to a specific international destination. Who knows! But if that’s you, let me know what your niche is!!
Future of GDS
For Years, GDS has been serving the travel industry with reliability, security, speed and accuracy to airlines, hospitality, car rentals, bus tickets and many more. As per IATA study the future of GDS is very huge and it will create robust ecommerce platform for travel industry. If GDSs keeps continuing the ever changing needs of airlines and hotel industry then it will rule the travel industry
Benefits of Flight Booking Engine:
Travellers can search number of flights and book them quickly as per the availability and requirement. Booking Engine stores all the inventory information including pricing, offers, availability, attractive deals etc..
What are the advantages for travel agent?
- Online travel agents are their own boss.
- Travel agents get a complimentary stay or heavy discounts offered by Airlines and hotels.
- Travel agents get high Markups on each flight ticket.
- Travel agents can work as per their convenience.
- Travel agents can work from home or the place you are comfortable with.
As an online travel agent, you help customers to:
- Save time and energy.
- You guide people from top to toe.
- Offer the best off-the-beaten-path to your customers.
- You are a real person so your customers won’t be in trouble like hard to reach customer care and hassle.
Offering the above-mentioned qualities on an online basis you can not only help the customer but also earn a lot of profit and commission on an online basis.
Conclusion
The Next Gen. Flight booking engine made traveling more comfortable and hassle-free. Flight booking API integration is an invention that helps the airline consolidators, travel agents, and travelers. Flight booking involves these three parties in the entire process of booking. What can be better when three parties can get all the information they are looking for at one place. It simplifies the process and saves a lot of times. In short, flight API has explored a new dimension for travel world.
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