It was a fairly eventful 2018, even by the standards set in airline distribution over recent years.
Perhaps the biggest story came in the form of Sabre buying Farelogix for $360 million during the week of The Phocuswright Conference in Los Angeles - two adversaries, now hand-in-hand.
Earlier, outlier and price prediction app Hopper continued its meteoric rise with a $100 million funding round in the summer.
And Travelport decided it was time to sell back to private equity after four years on the public markets, in a $4.4 billion deal expected to close in early-2019.
This activity signals how fluid the airline distribution landscape has become, with existing players jockeying for position and futures, with upstarts illustrating there is another way to disrupt the air booking market.
A session at the aforementioned event brought Farelogix, Travelport and Hopper together, with an airline thrown in for some perspective from suppliers.
Here is the panel:
- Jim Davidson, president and CEO at Farelogix
- Simon Ferguson, president and managing director for Americas at Travelport
- Fred Lalonde, founder and CEO at Hopper
- Tye Radcliffe, director of distribution at United
We caught up with Davidson and Radcliffe is a separate session in the PhocusWire studio, plus a one-to-one with Lalonde.
The video from the session.
Executive Roundtable: Airlines - From NDC to LCCs