November 8, 2016 TnH Global

Travelport continues its industry leadership in air merchandising

Travelport has continued to build momentum with its industry leading merchandising technology and is celebrating a number of achievements at the CAPA Aviation Summit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Over 180 airlines are now live with and have implemented Travelport Rich Content and Branding, the innovative solution that allows airlines to merchandise their full offering to Travelport-connected travel agencies around the world. This means agents can search and access full information, including visuals, on the airline’s branded fares and ancillaries, empowering them to sell more effectively to their customers and increase revenues. Online travel agencies can also make this information available direct to their customers via Travelport’s Universal API and offer airlines’ branded fares and ancillaries direct to its customers.
Building on this success, Travelport has also recently added the capability for airlines to target customers with branded, tailored offers and promotions and upload their content in 18 languages. These latest enhancements add yet another level of personalisation and flexibility to the booking process for both agents and travelers and bring the booking experience for air travel even closer, and sometimes even superior, to that of the airline’s own website.
As further evidence of the value airlines are seeing in Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform, IndiGo, India’s largest domestic airline and one of the world’s fastest growing low cost carriers, recently agreed to distribute all of its fares and ancillary products to Travelport-connected customers worldwide. This is the first time that IndiGo has struck a deal with a global GDS. The agreement echoes similar deals in 2014 that saw AirAsia distribute all of its fares and ancillary services through Travelport for the first time.
Travelport is also expanding its offering to airlines through MTT, a leading provider of sophisticated mobile and digital solutions, which it acquired in 2015 as part of its strategy to invest in new digital and mobile services for the travel industry. MTT is now a key part of its Travelport Digital division and has been announcing a steady string of new airline agreements including a renewal of its long-standing, successful partnership with easyJet. The agreement sees MTT and easyJet continue to collaborate on improving the traveler experience via an industry-leading, sophisticated mobile app which has been downloaded 17 million times to date. The announcement follows other recent agreements made this year with Silkair, the regional wing of Singapore Airlines (which is also a customer of MTT’s), Etihad Airways, Aeroméxico and COPA Airlines.
Derek Sharp, Travelport’s Senior Vice President and Managing Director for Air Commerce, commented: “Travelport is continuing to demonstrate a real leadership position in both its merchandising and mobile capabilities for airlines. By using our innovative technology, they can better explain their products and services to travel agencies as well as direct to the end traveler. Our recent announcements demonstrate the value airlines are seeing in partnering with Travelport and our competitive differentiation. We continue to work closely with all our customers to try and anticipate their changing needs and ensure that we are delivering products that help meet their own growth objectives.”
Sandeep Dwivedi, Chief Commercial Officer, ITQ, said, “With our exclusive solutions we are enabling airlines to harness the power of distributing their ancillary services through three main components of Travelport Merchandising Platform i.e. Aggregated Shopping, Rich Content & Branding and Ancillary services which provides distinctive diversification of products, helping travel agents to combine and offer solutions that seem tailor made for their customers.”