2009 October

TripWolf signs content deal with Footprint guidebooks, sheds light on new business model for content sites

October 15, 2009 By Kevin May 3 Comments

Travel guide site TripWolf is to work with guidebook brand Footprint to digitise its entire portfolio of destination content from around 60 books.

Following a trial for Footprint’s Peru edition, TripWolf will spend the next few weeks and months taking the original text files of the remaining guidebooks and add a string of electronic marks to make it web-friendly.

CEO Sebastian Heinzel says the Footprint content will be available alongside existing material on the Tripwolf site – but will include a Footprint stamp to indicate the source.

Filed Under: Mobile, News Tagged With: footprint, publishing, tripwolf

Farelogix to Sabre: What free ride?

October 14, 2009 By Dennis Schaal Leave a Comment

As the U.S. Dept. of Justice apparently continues to contact customers of Farelogix and Sabre, Farelogix President and CEO Jim Davidson rejected Sabre’s allegation that their developer’s agreement, which Sabre terminated earlier this year, “was an attempt to free ride off of our database and systems.”

Davidson says Farelogix made payments to Sabre for the developer’s agreement, which enabled the FLX Platform to operate side-by-side with Sabre and provide travel management companies with additional functionality as they acquired content from GDS and non-GDS sources.

Davidson won’t say how much those fees were.

But, I’m betting I might be able to pick up and garage a 2009 Acura TL 4-door sedan with 4-wheel drive or a comparable pleasure craft for the boatload of money that Farelogix likely paid for the agreement.

Filed Under: Data, Gadgets, News Tagged With: Dept. of Justice, Farelogix, sabre

EasyVoyage closes Euro 31M funding, eyes acquisition targets

October 14, 2009 By Kevin May 2 Comments

French travel search engine EasyVoyage has secured a further Euro 31.6 million round of investment – an injection of capital it claims is the biggest Leveraged Buyout in the country and the fifth highest for a technology firm in Europe in 2009.

The deal is part of an LBO of the business by financial investors UFG and BIMV and comes three years after an initial injection of funds to the tune of Euro 9 million in 2006.

The metasearch company says it will use the money as a warchest for new acquisitions around Europe after launching a number of country sites around the continent over the past few years.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: easyvoyage

Air Canada assisting ITA’s reservations system hopes with other airlines

October 14, 2009 By Dennis Schaal 3 Comments

Air Canada, which took a $61 million write-off several months ago and scuttled a 4-year-old ITA Software project to overhaul the airline’s reservations system, apparently is ready to assist the technology firm in its efforts to pedal the Passenger Services System to other airlines.

In an ITA Software announcement about a second deal to implement ITA’s QPX pricing and shopping system across AirCanada.com and its agency websites, ITA stated: “Air Canada will provide testing and domain expertise to ITA as it completes the remaining work on its industry-changing Passenger Services System (PSS) solution.”

When asked if that work with ITA pertained to eventual implementation of the discontinued Polaris res system project, Air Canada spokesman John Reber told me: “The testing and domain expertise provided on PSS is to support ITA in proposals for other airlines.”

Filed Under: Data, Gadgets, News Tagged With: Air Canada, ITA Software, QPX, reservations system

How Worldspan fits Apple Vacations’ emerging strategy

October 14, 2009 By Dennis Schaal 2 Comments

I wrote this week about the shortcomings of the Apple Vacations website despite this major tour operator’s adoption of Worldspan’s e-Pricing, Rapid Reprice and XML Pro technologies.

Now, it turns out, Apple Vacations has ended a two-decades-old relationship with Sabre and implemented Worldspan, but so far the installation has touched the wholesaler’s back-end systems only.

However, in December, Apple Vacations plans to begin a phased-in half-year project to update all of its front-end systems, beginning with its proprietary Resapi for its internal agents, then moving on to its Myappleonline for travel agents, and finally to the consumer website.

Filed Under: Data, News

If SaaS is so good why will it only account for 8pc of software by 2012?

October 14, 2009 By Kevin May 7 Comments

The travel industry is just one of dozens of sectors which have seen what many say is a major shift from off-the-shelf, version-based technology to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

A string of travel technology providers have adopted the model amid incessant chatter in the wider tech community as to the benefits of the having a SaaS programme to run critical systems such as researvations, booking, CRM, email and accounts.

But as the following clip from ZDNet explains, SaaS still accounts for just 4% of the overall global software marketplace and is only expected to double in size over the next three years.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: SaaS

Winter capacity cuts will affect GDS revenues – or will they?

October 14, 2009 By Timothy O'Neil-Dunne 1 Comment

It has become an interesting conundrum that the GDS market for airline segments has been seeing cuts that outpaced the capacity and traffic cuts from the airlines.

Some of this is obvious but some is subtle and not being noticed.

What is more interesting is that the GDSs should be seeing pretty significant reductions in airline based gross revenues.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: airline, amadeus, galileo, GDS, sabre, travelport, worldspan

Amadeus moving closer to IPO, Madrid likely location for listing

October 14, 2009 By Kevin May 4 Comments

GDS and technology giant Amadeus is marching headfirst toward a massive public offering of the business after appointing a number of major US banks to coordinate the process.

Dow Jones [closed network] says today that the Madrid-headquartered has hired Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley to run the affairs of the IPO in the run up to a public listing.

Amadeus is refusing to comment on any aspect of an IPO of the company but sources within the organisation have reiterated that a listing would probably be located in Madrid, Spain.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: amadeus, IPO

BlueSky latest: Thomas Cook bids, uses ex-employees as temporary cover

October 13, 2009 By Kevin May 6 Comments

The plot thickens with the BlueSky-Thomas Cook saga this week as Tnooz learns of moves at the European tour operating giant to ensure its live product system continues to run smoothly.

It is understood that a team of 25 ex-BlueSky Technologies staffers are working on the system for Thomas Cook either as contractors or through agencies.

Thomas Cook is also believed to have submitted a bid for the intellectual property rights for the BlueSky Technologies iTour system.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: bluesky travel systems, thomas cook

IBM responds to Air New Zealand attack over power outage: We are looking into it

October 13, 2009 By Kevin May 3 Comments

Air New Zealand suffered every airline’s second worst nightmare – after in-flight aircraft failure – when its computer systems went down for six hours last weekend, causing inevitable chaos and disruption.

Rob Fyfe, chief executive of Air New Zealand, launched a scathing attack on IT supplier IBM for the power outage, saying in an email which unsuprisingly found its way onto the web that “we were left high and dry and this is simply unacceptable”.

The collapse of the airline’s check-in and boarding systems led to 10,000 passengers being delayed for up to ten hours at a time as staff manually processed tickets and each flight’s manifest.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: air new zealand, IBM