‘As
em
e
Wave season tests 2012 waters 8
IN OTHER NEWS
Arnie Weissmann:
US
Bill Marriott to step down 6
Demand high for Cuba travel 39
Richard Turen:
36
12
Apple
descr
DECEMBER 19, 2011
THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER OF THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY
We began 2011 hoping
for some economic
progress, and it says
something about the
year that we’re still not
really sure if we got any.
“ARC has banded together with other industry leaders to educate agents on how to
identify these illegal emails and avoid navi-
By Johanna Jainchill
spoofing GDSs
Phishing scams
[ ARC WARNS OF ONLINE FRAUD ]
are on the rise
BY BILL POLING PAGE 16
A recent upsurge in cybercriminals sending
email messages designed to trick agents into
believing they are from a GDS is causing a
marked increase in the issuance of unau-
thorized airline tickets, ARC revealed last
week.
From August to November, ARC said,
Year in Review
82 incidents of this type were reported, ac-
counting for 73% of all cases reported so far
in 2011.
In 2010, a total of just 18 such incidents
were reported to ARC.
The aggregate face value of the unauthorized tickets in 2011 is more than $1 million,
ARC said, with the largest single incident
valued at more than $77,000.
Agents unhappy with fees in Travelport’s Agility program
‘Whoever the hackers can
get to bite, that’s where
they go.’
[ WILL CHARGE FOR SERVICES THAT WERE FREE ]
Chuck Fischer, ARC
See FRAUD on Page 40
gating to fraudulent links,” said Chuck Fischer, ARC’s director of operations integrity.
ARC said it believes that the increase in
unauthorized tickets is directly related to an
upsurge in phishing email, which attempts to
trick the receiver into revealing such infor-
mation as login IDs, usernames, passwords
and/or credit card details. In these cases, the
phishing emails target travel agents, travel
agency employees and independent contrac-
tors and are designed to appear as if they
have been sent from GDSs.
The phishing email entices the reader to
obtain additional information or reports
by clicking on an Internet address that takes
them to a fraudulent GDS website where the
agent logs in and provides credentials that
By Johanna Jainchill
With the GDSs having spent much
of the last year embroiled in pub-
lic disputes with airlines over costs
and technology, it surprised no one
last week that Travelport once again
found itself in the thick of another
row.
What was surprising was that this time it
wasn’t the airlines in the ring with Travel-
port; it was subscribers to Travelport’s GDSs
— Apollo, Galileo and Worldspan — who
learned this month that as of Jan. 1, they will
be paying a monthly fee for a suite of programs, including several that used to be free.
Travelport’s new Agility program bundles
a host of functions, some that previously
were free, others that carried fees and new
ones that Travelport says will increase agent
revenue and efficiency as well as reduce costs.
Travelport said it will no longer sell optional services. Instead, agents must sign up
for Agility, which Travelport said would cost
between $15 and $35 per user, per month,
depending on where in the world the user is
based. Users are defined by global terminal
identifiers, which typically reference a single
agent but can also be shared.
The trade mostly reacted with disappoint-
ment to the new program, focusing largely
on the fact that several of the tools included
in Agility are historically free ones that are
essential to agents’ work.
“What is the critical change here is that
any travel agent of any size requires these
functions — back office, interface, queues
— in order to operate,” said ARTA Managing
See AGILITY on Page 38
Director Bruce Bishins.
The agents, he said, “are really being
backed into a corner and being told to take
it or leave it. But if you choose to leave it, you
won’t be able to operate in a GDS environ-
ment.”
ARTA said in a statement that the changes
appeared to signal “a major transition of
GDS costs away from travel suppliers and
onto the backs of travel agents,” adding that
the program imposed “significant new finan-
cial terms on travel agent subscribers in or-
der to continue use of essential booking and
ticketing facilities.”
Travelport, however, said the program
would help its subscribers reduce operating
costs and improve productivity and efficien-
cy, as well as grow revenue.
Beyond that, Bryan Conway, Travelport’s
