ARC, IATA partner to sell airlines IATA data in an ARC format
By Andrew Compart
ARC and IATA reached a joint marketing
and licensing agreement that could help
them sell more global data to airlines, and
both said it could be a forerunner to other,
similar arrangements.
IATA, which operates the Billing Settle-
ment Plan that is the international equivalent of ARC, has a Passenger Intelligence
Services product that includes ticket information from 394 airlines in 156 countries.
The database includes agency, country and
region of ticket issuance as well as fare categories, average fare value and airport information.
Under the new IATA-ARC agreement,
the Passenger Intelligence Services data
will be offered in the ARC Segment Detail
Specification format, which is a file structure ARC uses for the ARC Itinerary Detail
product and plans to use for future data
products.
ARC officials said ARC was working on
providing its data in IATA’s format.
ARC’s Itinerary Detail provides daily segment information for 38 data elements, including origin and destination airport; class
of service; departure and arrival details; and
marketing carrier for each travel segment.
The reports reflect sales, refunds and exchanges and can provide up to 39 months
of historical data.
ARC officials said the agreement means
airlines that buy the similar databases from
both ARC and IATA won’t have to spend
the time, effort and money required to re-format them on their own to put them together into a global database. That, in turn,
should help sales, they said.
Airlines still would buy the databases
separately from ARC and IATA but could
ask for it in the global format.
“The benefit is the carrier would be more
inclined to buy data that is in a standardized format,” said Sheila Cuyjet, ARC’s acting general manager for data and analytical
services.
There is plenty of potential for more co-operation between ARC and IATA because
database sales are a growing source of business for both of them. ARC, for example,
currently offers more than 40 data and analytical products.
Sabre tool combs
hotel Web prices
By Jeri Clausing
Sabre Travel Network is launching a service
to help assure agents they are getting a hotel
rate that their clients won’t be able to beat
on the Internet.
The program, called Rate Assured, will
monitor Web sites to see what rates individual hotels are offering, then certify in the
GDS those hotels that stand by their promises to give agents the best deal.
The program will launch June 28, according to Stephen Fitzgerald, vice president of
Sabre’s hotel and car distribution unit.
“One of the things we hear a lot from
agents is that one of their fears is that when
they book a room, the customer is going to
call back and say they just found it on Expedia for $20 less,” Fitzgerald said.
Rate Assured goes beyond the rate programs offered by most GDS systems to
monitor individual hotels and see if they
are sticking to their promise to give agents
rate parity, he said.
Part of problem, he said, is that many
hotels are individually owned, and they
sometimes make decisions to sell rooms on
the Internet below prices the chains have
guaranteed as a best rate for agents.
“Pricing is not set at the chain level,” he
said.
Sabre has contracted with Rubicon, a
technology vendor, to shop third-party
Web sites.
It will use robotics technology and data
feeds from hotel chains to compare rates on
a weekly basis, Fitzgerald said.