<\/p>\n

Historically, Southwest was known for its determined focus on direct distribution. But they began to realize that it was time for a change.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Feedback from travel management companies (TMCs) has been that direct isn\u2019t always the best way to do business. For example, Southwest not being a full GDS participant meant that agents had to pick up the phone and call to modify bookings, which created delays in their workflow. Equally, limited access to content meant that trust in the shopping and booking process was degraded, and the full booking potential wasn\u2019t being realized.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Southwest listened and decided to adapt its distribution strategy to provide a better customer experience. After becoming a full GDS participant with Travelport last May, the airline can now better service existing customers, and get more access to new high-yield customers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main goal of this project for years has been to deliver better solutions for customers, with a priority around business travel,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>said Eric.\u00a0\u201cTechnology\u2019s just too good these days for basic booking to continue to make sense \u2014 there\u2019s no reason to force agents to call us to change a ticket\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For TMCs, this means agents can now access all of Southwest\u2019s fare families and manage tickets within a single workflow, significantly reducing the need for manual intervention.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

The game-changer<\/h4>\n

<\/p>\n

The process for full participation began in Autumn 2019 but came to fruition last year, at a time when efficiency had never been so important. By enabling full content with Travelport, Southwest is now set up to emerge from the pandemic stronger than ever.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThis GDS channel very specifically helps all of us rebound because it provides a much more efficient and cost-focused channel for travel agencies to use,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>said Eric.\u00a0\u201cOur goal is to make all of our fare families available via the GDS, and then provide access to TMCs to manage those tickets.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Southwest\u2019s immediate focus is to retail more of its existing products through Travelport, and then ultimately get\u00a0EarlyBird Check-In<\/a>\u00ae available on the platform as an ancillary cross-sell option. The other net benefit for Travelport agency customers is that Southwest\u2019s international destinations are now available in the GDS.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe term \u2018game-changer\u2019 has been used by us at Southwest, as well as by agencies,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0said Eric. \u201cThis success has been lauded by our executive team as \u2018possibly one of our best enterprise technical releases ever.\u2019 And we did so in a quarantine world, via a virtual command center.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As a full GDS participant, Southwest has been able to use Travelport\u2019s Rich Content and Branding tool to communicate the value of its Wanna Get Away\u00ae, Anytime\u00ae, and Business Select\u00ae offers to agencies. Southwest can also engage with agencies using a wide range of other features and tools available through Travelport. This is particularly useful for communicating with travelers about what they can expect when flying with the airline going forward.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A winning partnership<\/h4>\n

<\/p>\n

Travelport and Southwest\u2019s partnership began over a decade ago, and being the first GDS to offer full Southwest content was a proud moment for us. It\u2019s a reflection of the journey we have shared, and the strong relationship that exists between us.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cTravelport has always been more flexible and easier to talk to than some of the other competitors in this space,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>said Eric.\u00a0\u201cIts people always look to do things differently, and keep agents in mind.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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Travelport\u2019s strong roster of NDC content and their new lightweight Travelport+ technology will enable us to leverage NDC to its full potential.<\/div>\n

James Xu, Senior Vice President at Tongcheng-Elong and CEO of its airline ticket business group<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why Southwest Airlines became a full GDS participant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,37],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/travelport.com.kz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/travelport.com.kz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/travelport.com.kz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travelport.com.kz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travelport.com.kz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/travelport.com.kz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travelport.com.kz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/travelport.com.kz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travelport.com.kz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travelport.com.kz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}