Decius Valmorbida, Amadeus SVP of travel channels

It takes two to tango. While the International Airlines Group initiated a new "private channel" concept in travel distribution this year, the British Airways and Iberia parent needed a willing partner on the distribution side to do the dance. Enter Amadeus.

In October, a month before BA and Iberia enacted a distribution surcharge on global distribution system bookings, several major travel management companies revealed they'd reached a deal, facilitated by Amadeus, in which the airlines would shield their corporate customers from the airlines' GDS-booking surcharge.

In the ensuing months, Sabre and then Travelport followed suit on similar deals that allowed travel agencies, handpicked by IAG airlines, to book on their systems without surcharge.

Amadeus SVP of travel channels Decius Valmorbida was instrumental in fostering the model at the first-mover company. He cited demand from the two primary users of the GDS. "We have seen both the agencies and the [IAG] airlines saying, 'I would like to have some resellers with access to different content and to different commercial conditions.' We have seen both sides ask us, 'What if we could come into commercial terms that are different than what is the standard GDS commercial offer? Would you as a technology provider be able to power that?' Our response has been, 'Absolutely.' We have the infrastructure, we have the technology and we can facilitate those agreements."

The modus operandi of each GDS for years had been to secure equal access to airline content for all agency subscribers, and the private channel has deviated from convention. Amadeus called private channel "a workable option for specific contexts. It gives travel agencies and TMCs access to a full range of content and servicing capabilities, while also giving airlines the ability to sell their content in a way that meets their strategic business objectives."

Indeed, as Amadeus seeks to address "the issue of content fragmentation," it noted that "the private channel is just one of the many models we've been exploring."