Travel agents across Pune held a protest outside the office of Air India, opposite the Pune RTO, against the airline’s decision to shift to a single Global Distribution System (GDS). The move, protesters said, will spell trouble for booking agents across the country and abroad, but will also cause a major dent in the airline’s business. A GDS is a computerised system that enables transactions between travel industry service providers, like airlines, hotels, car rental companies and travel agencies. It gives these service providers access to real-time inventory, such as number of hotel rooms available, number of flight seats available, or number of cars available. Air India’s new GDS will have exclusive access to inventory. Travel agents said this will adversely impact their business. At least 100 booking agents from Pune took part in the protest in front of the Air India’s office. They shouted slogans and held placards stating their aims. All four associations of travel agents in Pune — Travel Agents Association of India (Pune Chapter), Travel Agents Federation of India (Pune Chapter), Enterprising Travel Agents Association (Western India) and Travel Agents Association, Pune — supported the protest. There are at least 2,800 travel booking agents in Pune. “Agents earn incentives from service providers and the airline’s decision will hit them hard. It will also disconnect at least 18 codeshare partners and over 100 inter-line partners. It will also lead to loss of business from Star Alliance Partners, a membership that Air India got with difficulty. It is also understood that GDS companies have proposed alternative strategies with reduced costs to avoid this exclusivity by Air India,” said Nilesh Bhansali, director, Travel Agents’ Association of Pune. Bahram P Zadeh, chairman of TAAI’s Pune chapter,called the airline’s shift to a single GDS a blunder. He said by looking to align with only one GDS, the airline is creating a monopoly and risking its sales and marketing business . Santosh Khawale, chairman, ETAA (Western Maharashtra), said the majority of travel agents are using only Amadeus — a major Spanish IT provider for the global travel and tourism industry — and almost no one uses Travelport, the GDS to which Air India has moved. “Transition from one GDS to another is not an easy job. It will require months of training and system in the organisation just to promote one airline when they can offer many other options to their passengers,” said Khawale.
