Direct Connect and Ancillaries for Airlines: New Distribution Capability

Summary

Over the past 50 years, the players in air travel facilitation, distribution and sales have established an efficient process for selling travel products and services. This process allowed intermediaries (GDSs) to aggregate shopping
content across multiple suppliers and make that aggregation available to points of sale which were originally travel agencies, but evolved to include travel management companies (TMCs), online travel agencies (OTAs) and
metasearch companies.

Since then, new technologies such as the Internet and XML have entered the picture, and through the International Air Transport Association (IATA), 240 of the world’s airlines want to update this distribution and sales process
accordingly.