If it’s not all fares, then that’s frustrating. Not all sale fares will be included? It’s hard to know for sure. On the website, Southwest says it will offer “Access to our everyday low Southwest fares through your channel of choice.” That mention of “everyday” makes me a little nervous. What’s not clear is whether this will actually be full participation or not. It makes Southwest far more attractive to those people actually responsible for booking a ton of travel. It will make multi-city bookings possible along with changes and cancellations. This means agencies can search for and book Southwest in their GDSs just as they do other airlines… when this goes live in the back half of 2020. This doesn’t sound like a strategic issue but rather an economic one. Now, this doesn’t help me since I use Sabre, but I have to imagine that will follow eventually. Along with a re-branding from Southwest Corporate Travel to Southwest Business, the airline will now fully participate in Galileo and Amadeus GDSs. So it was with great relief when I saw Southwest announce it was finally going to play the game properly. Southwest may not have an identical model as those airlines, but it’s long been clear there was benefit to be had. Costs to do so have come down, and the revenue benefits have proven to be large for legacy carriers. ( Remember Newark?) In those markets, agencies are less likely to go to (let alone SWABIZ).īut even in markets where it dominates, Southwest could still likely benefit from participating in the GDSs more fully. That’s particularly helpful considering the airline has spread into more big markets where it doesn’t have a large share. Participating in the GDS makes the airline instantly more visible to corporates. Selling through third parties costs money, so why bother? Well, to the surprise of very few outside Southwest, there are very good reasons. It could sell direct and still do just as well as if it sold through third parties. It had become big, and it dominated in many mid-size markets. Southwest has long believed that it just didn’t need to play ball. But for smaller customers, agents have to rely on SWABIZ, the old booking system for corporates that recently got a refresh but still lacks basic functionality like the ability to book multi-city flights. Southwest segments also can’t be put into the same reservation as other airline segments.įor its best customers, Southwest has created “direct connect” options which feed more fare content into large agent systems. Agents can’t see flight availability, and ticketing is handled in a roundabout way that’s different than with nearly every other airline. In other words, it’s impossible to rely upon the GDS today, so that defeats the purpose of participating in the GDS.Įven when booking in the GDS, Southwest doesn’t have full participation. It’s not that all Wanna Get Away fares are excluded, but it’s hard to know when a lower fare will pop up. The lowest fare is the Anytime $592 fare. For example, if I look up a flight from Los Angeles to Nashville in a couple days, I get this on :īut when I look in Sabre, that Wanna Get Away fare is non-existent. Southwest has timidly dipped its toes into the GDS waters, but the effort has been generally useless for those companies where price matters. Tools have been built to overcome this issue, but it’s still not enough. That’s fine for unmanaged travel, but it’s a real pain for people who manage travel. Southwest, as most people know, has long held firm to its desire to sell everything direct. That makes reporting and compliance much easier to manage. These agencies have long preferred to handle bookings through the Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) which make it easy to compile everything in one system. “Managed travel” in a nutshell is when a company uses a travel agency to handle its corporate travel policies, bookings, and reporting. Though selling to business travelers has always been at the core of the business, selling to managed travel accounts has not. That has kept Southwest in a proverbial box that I and others would argue it could have busted out of with different priorities. That may sound good, but the problem is that Southwest has often stuck to its guns and refused to adapt quickly enough over time, if at all, to new realities. That original model has held for decades. It was the business traveler looking for a deal ( and free liquor) that brought success. Those frequent first flights in the Texas Triangle (Dallas-Houston-San Antonio) weren’t going to succeed on the then-anemic leisure travel demand. After all, contrary to popular belief, it’s business travel that has always been Southwest’s bread and butter. It is odd to think of Southwest as not being serious about business travel. You can get full information and place your bids here. Bidding continues through Wednesday for the Cranky Dorkfest LAX Progressive Dinner.
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