ITA powers G2 Switchworks, a nascent GNE (GDS New Entrant). To the best of the industry's knowledge, they have yet to produce any true booking volume. The "G2" is reminiscent of Orbitz' codename "T2" prior to becoming public. This could very well be because both products were the brainchild of the same individual. "On its way" to becoming a viable GDS alternative is not the same thing as industry-quality functionality :) http://www.eyefortravel.com/print.asp?news=43375 ITA Software by year-end will produce an alternative to the global distribution systems, executives with ITA and United Airlines revealed Wednesday at the Travel Distribution Summit organized by EyeforTravel. - (9/24/2004) By Jay Campbell, Founder of The Beat - A Business Travel Newswire ITA Software by year-end will produce an alternative to the global distribution systems, executives with ITA and United Airlines revealed Wednesday at the Travel Distribution Summit organized by EyeforTravel. "The software we rolled out five years ago dealt with pricing and shopping," said Jeremy Wertheimer, president and CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based ITA Software. "That's sort of the left half of the GDS. But still when you hit the 'book it' button, you switched over to 1960s land, and you're on a very expensive [GDS] mainframe. Recently, we've deployed a set of solutions where that also happens in 21st-century technology, and the costs are about the same as carrier might pay for an airline.com booking. It's a solution that is applicable to whatever channel you like, whether airline.com or Orbitz or G2 Switchworks or a travel agency." Wertheimer said the solution will offer content including air, car, hotel, cruises and tours. It will provide both a web-style booking front end as well as "green screen" emulators for those interested in continuing their use of GDS commands. Connections through SITA, an information and telecommunications solutions provider to airlines, will deliver a multitude of worldwide carriers, he said. Wertheimer said offering a booking solution had been in ITA's long-term plans, but GDS deregulation and other recent events made it a priority. United Airlines is one network carrier that already has tested the new product, which is yet to be named. Other major carriers also are involved, sources said. "ITA's new product has booked and ticketed on our system and is well on its way to becoming a fully functioning GDS alternative," said United's director of distribution strategy, Derek Lewitton. One challenge to getting online or offline agencies to break from their GDS partners is that those agencies accept lucrative incentive payments from GDS firms. "We know we need to give them a reason to move, and we will," said Lewitton. "The new low-cost situation gives us room to create incentives for people to adopt much more rapidly than an evolutionary approach would dictate. Our belief is the solution needs to offer agencies many of the same values the GDSs evolved with, so its our obligation to make those alternatives as attractive as possible to our agency and corporate partners." "I personally don't believe that a direct connect model or airline portal offers the kinds of business processes that will be attractive to our agency partners," Lewitton added. In a separate development, Lewitton said United this week expects to finalize its participation in Orbitz's Supplier Link GDS-bypass program. Both the recently announced G2 Switchworks and Orbitz are ITA Software clients. "We're working closely with ITA, G2 and Orbitz to be sure an abundance of options emerges," said Lewitton. "There will be integrated solutions for agencies that give them the ability to cross shop and to own one 'super PNR' instead of booking the air piece here and the car or hotel piece over here. The only question is, how rapidly can one overcome the commercial limitations and encourage adoption?" "Those who don't have direct connect strategies had better get them," said Timothy O'Neil-Dunne, managing partner with travel e-commerce consulting firm T2Impact. He then called the people sitting in the major GDS companies' headquarters "an endangered species." GDS firms have been hearing such judgements for years, but the major network carriers have never before been so desperate to alter their business models. ~ Jay Campbell "Michael C. Berch" <mcb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Note that ITA Software (matrix.itasoftware.com) is *not* a booking agent; you can't book space through it. It's a technology demonstration for their actual product, which is the engine that they sell to airlines to power their web site booking engines. It functions as a trip planner, though, and is one of the best, if not *the* best. But even though you get full details of the flight and fare, down to the actual fare code and breakdown of base fare, fees, and taxes, as well as fare rules, there is no link even to the airline to book it; you have to do that manually and make sure that the flights/fares/rules exactly match what ITA generated. I have found that occasionally to be difficult, especially when ITA generates a routing that is not one that the airline generates in their direct flight/fare/route display for the itinerary. -- Michael C. Berch mcb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx --------------------------------- Yahoo! for Good Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.