Tag Archives: Gordon Wilson

Japan Airlines and Travelport have agreed to form a joint venture to take ownership of Travelport Japan K K (Travelport Japan) and JAL’s 100 per cent owned subsidiary, Axess International Network. Under the unified Travelport Axess brand, the joint venture will operate a Global Distribution System (GDS) tailored to the needs of the Japanese travel industry. The proposed joint venture, which will operate under the brand name Travelport Axess, will combine Axess’ expertise in Japan and Travelport’s global technology leadership. Yoriyuki Kashiwagi, Executive Officer of International Passenger Sales, Japan Airlines, said, “We believe that the future of travel will be transformed by technological innovation. I am confident that Travelport Axess will be able to help Japanese travel agents to respond to growing global demands by offering services based on state-of-the-art technology.” Travelport Axess will continue to offer travel agents services through Axess’ GDS platform, and enable access to Travelport’s GDS platforms, Apollo and Galileo. The proposed joint venture will provide online, mobile and corporate travel propositions including global booking and expense management tools as well as access to New Distribution Capability (NDC) content, offering Japanese travel agencies and their customers the best of locally developed products with best-in-class global connectivity and capabilities. Gordon Wilson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Travelport, commented, “This announcement and our ongoing partnership with Japan Airlines is a significant advance in the provision of state-of-the-art technology for the Japanese travel industry.” Under the planned agreement, Travelport will hold a majority stake in Travelport Axess, with JAL controlling the remaining stake and playing an active role in the joint venture. Following the signing of a definitive agreement between Travelport and JAL, the new joint venture is expected to …

Travelport has become the first GDS operator to manage the live booking of flights using the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) New Distribution Capability (NDC) technical standard. The first transaction was made by a British agency, Meon Valley Travel, on October 19 for a short-haul low-cost flight from London to Milan issued by a major European carrier. The new capability allows bookings to be made for any services on the airline without incurring a surcharge. Travelport’s new NDC capability is enabled using similar XML connections to those Travelport already deploys with APIs for over 20 low-cost carriers. The company published a roadmap for its initial range of NDC products in February, having been the first GDS operator in December 2017 to acquire Level 3 certification from IATA as an aggregator. It will also be followed by a series of product enhancements, including a version for online agents in 2019. Gordon Wilson, President and CEO, Travelport, said: “We are delighted to have taken a lead in bringing the NDC era to life. It has required an extraordinary amount of skill and expertise to make this happen and I want to thank my own colleagues at Travelport as well as our partners. We are still at the earliest stages of NDC deployment. Its evolution will continue to take time as we learn from the practical experience of its first use. Meanwhile, we continue to offer a comprehensive global travel commerce platform capable of handling mass volumes of searchable and bookable content at speed for the world’s travel providers and agents.”

Travelport has announced that it had won a competitive tender process undertaken by Air India for the sole provision of distribution of its domestic flight content. The contract awarded to Travelport will begin to come into effect from November 2018 and be fully implemented by the end of 2019. The agreement confirms Air India’s continued deployment of Travelport Rich Content and Branding, now used by over 270 airlines. This displays airlines’ graphical content, their fares families and a full range of ancillary products. Travelport has seen a rapid expansion in India in recent years following the acquisition of business from the largest online travel agencies like MakeMyTrip, Ibibo, Yatra, EaseMyTrip and ClearTrip as well as working with the major corporate travel agencies and new entrants to the travel sector such as Paytm. Pradeep Singh Kharola, Chairman and Managing Director, Air India, said, “Air India is pleased to award this important contract to Travelport. In written submissions and in discussion with their team, the company demonstrated a clear understanding of our needs and displayed impressive technological and financial capability. As we make the switch to Travelport, we hope to be able to deliver even better value for money and a superior distribution to our customers in India and abroad.” Gordon Wilson, President and CEO, Travelport, commented, “Travelport is delighted to have been selected by Air India to provide these services. It is another welcome endorsement of our technology and our services in India. We look forward to implementing the agreement and delivering a world-class service to the airline.”

MakeMyTrip and InterGlobe Technology Quotient, the official distributor of Travelport in India have forged a strategic alliance that will allow the OTA access into Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform. Under the agreement, MakeMyTrip can expand the use of Travelport’s technology from the Ibibo Group to their other primary distribution channels starting in the second half of calendar year 2017. Gordon Wilson, Travelport’s President and CEO, commented, “India is a market with enormous growth potential where Travelport, working with our distributor ITQ, has grown in air booking terms by 14 per cent in the first half of 2017 when the GDS air market has grown by 11 per cent. Securing a partnership with the leading online travel agency in the market, with a high growth profile and tremendous track record, gives even further impetus to our plans in the country.” Deep Kalra, Founder, Chairman and Group CEO, MakeMyTrip, added, “This is an exciting time for MakeMyTrip and we are delighted to partner with Travelport and ITQ as part of our growth strategy in the service of the travelling Indian consumer.” Travelport currently boasts a portfolio of approximately 400 airlines, including the merchandised content of over half of these carriers such as fares families and ancillary products (paid seat assignments, baggage fees, priority boarding, etc). MakeMyTrip, along with its other entities Goibibo and redBus receives over 33 million visits via its desktop and mobile-web platforms and serves over 40 million mobile app active users each month.

India’s business travel industry has grown by 16.2 per cent over the past five years (2011-2016), according to a report by Travelport and World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) launched at the WTTC Global Summit 2017 in Bangkok. It has been predicted that Asia-Pacific will lead the way at a predicted rate of 6.2 per cent each year to 2027, with India (7.2%) among the top five countries attributing to the growth. Over the past five years, at a global level, business travel spend has grown at an annual average of 3.6 per cent, with the strongest growth in the past 5 years having taken place in Asia, the Middle East and Sub Saharan Africa. The CEO of Travelport, Gordon Wilson, commented: “Every day we see business travel growing at a significant rate in many emerging markets with technology playing an in increasingly important role in easing the way for those on trips for their work. As an industry we need to continue to invest in the best technologies and infrastructure whilst governments need to be more business-friendly by removing burdensome visa requirements.” David Scowsill, President & CEO, WTTC, said: “Travel & Tourism generates USD$7.6 trillion in GDP and supports over 292 million jobs. Business travel is a vital part of the sector, and it is a key catalyst for global growth. It drives the relationships, investments, supply chains and logistics that support international trade flows.”

IndiGo Airlines will now have its fares and ancillaries on Travelport’s travel commerce platform in India. The announcement was made in September, and now the content is live on Travelport. The launch saw in attendance Aditya Ghosh, President & Whole Time Director, IndiGo,  and Gordon Wilson, President & CEO, Travelport. The partnership will see IndiGo leverage Travelport’s leading merchandising capabilities to bring IndiGo’s brand proposition to life for travellers in India, and will be rolled out to agents globally in a phased approach.