Sri Lankan Airlines fires salvo on mounting GDS costs

Sri Lankan Airlines is set to launch an agent booking engine, marking as most industry pundits predict, a revolution in airline distribution strategy that could see costs halved due to marginalisation of GDS costs.
Its head of commercial, Barry Brown told Express TravelWorld that Tradenet which had already been rolled out in Sri Lanka was poised for its India debut by early 2007. While it will initially be introduced purely as an interface for booking holidays under the aegis of SriLankan Holidays, the airlines' leisure experiences division, the airline inventory will soon be available as well. Significantly, agent commissions for bookings through Tradenet will be 10 per cent.
Certain consolidators in India are already being spoken to while all of its GSAs and respective networks could be part of the strategy.
27/10/06 Lanka Everything, UK

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