Travelport claims a ground-breaking move in Russia today with the unveiling of new partnership with the country’s main GDS to hook agents to global flight bookings.
The agreement with Sirena-Travel, Russia’s main domestic GDS, will effectively connect around 16,000 agent terminals (400 agencies) to search and booking facilities for international air bookings through the existing Travelport system.
Sirena-Travel International by Travelport, as it will be called, has two as yet unnamed international carriers expected to participate and “many others also indicated a strong interest”, officials say.
Travelport says the deal will provide over 40% of the agents on the system with the ability to book international flights for the first time.
Sirena-hosted agents currently able to book global airlines using separate systems will be able to run both domestic and international operations from a single system, Travelport says.
Agents are dotted around Russia in roughly 7,000 locations covering both small and regional travel agent businesses.
Travelport says part of the agreement is also set to explore implementation with Sirena of existing airline technology tools for the country including the Interline E-Ticketing Exchange product.
The Sirena-Travel GDS was launched in 2001 after securing approval from the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Transport.
PS: Niklas Andreen (Travelport), Maria Yakushkina (Travelport Russia), Robin Ranken (Travelport), Marina Volodina (Sirena-Travel), Mikhail Baskakov (Sirena-Travel),
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