OAG, Travelport GDS extend ties as airline schedule battle heats up

OAG and Travelport GDS agreed to extend their relationship in a new, long-term licensing pact, the companies stated.

Under the new contract, OAG will continue to make its airline schedules and minimum-connect time data available to Travelport’s Galileo and Worldspan global distribution systems for use by online and offline travel agencies, and corporations which connect to the GDSs. OAG also will provide data feeds to Travelport’s Business Intelligence Suite.

OAG, a unit of UBM Aviation, also has a separate pact to provide airline schedule data to Orbitz Worldwide, which is controlled by Travelport.

The Travelport win — or contract renewal — was an important one for OAG as competition apparently heats up in the airline schedule/data arena.

In July 2009, OAG competitor Innovata picked off Sabre’s business, and Innovata was scheduled to begin providing airline schedule and minimum-connect time data to the Sabre GDS and sister distribution systems Abacus and Infini, as well as travel agencies connected to these systems worldwide, before the end of 2009.

OAG had been Sabre’s provider for more than 30 years.

Innovata also provides data to Sabre Airline Solutions.