The U.S. Dept. of Justice has begun looking into allegations by Farelogix that Sabre engaged in anti-competitive practices when it terminated a Farelogix developers' agreement in March. Tnooz has learned that the Dept. of Justice has recently begun contacting Farelogix customers about the allegations. Farelogix partner Pass Consulting, as well as Globus and Vayama (also known as Air Trade International), confirmed they have been contacted. Farelogix alleges -- and Sabre denies -- that when Sabre terminated the Farelogix developers' agreement with the Sabre GDS that Sabre was using its imposing market clout in the U.S. market to snuff out a competitor. When that agreement ended, it made it much more difficult for Farelogix customers to integrate their Farelogix bookings with other reservations made through Sabre.... Read More

Rumours that bids for the beleaguered BlueSky Travel Systems business would only be accepted before 5pm BST today are apparently wide of the mark. The cut-off date appeared rather hurried as the company only officially went into administration last week, on September 30. Administrator MCR has confirmed how many bids have been received "so far" and also remarked that any technology company or investor that wanted to put a proposal together for BlueSky needn't panic at missing what was supposedly an official deadline.... Read More

Farecast, Farecompare and a number of other travel sites made the idea of data crunching at the front end extremely popular with users. Such scientific chores such as displaying when is typically the best time to buy a ticket on certain airlines became quite a usual and often core feature of websites as they tried to differentiate themselves from the metasearch engines already in the market. Kayak has now done it the other way round, with a slightly watered down version showing search volumes and average fares across its network of destinations.... Read More

In putting WIT-Web In Travel 2009 together, I have been traveling across the region and getting a taste of what’s unfolding in the online travel landscape. From Kuala Lumpur to Taipei to Bangkok, a similar story seems to be unfolding – that the convergence of several things happening is moving more and more consumers online and onto mobile in this biggest, and fastest growing market in the world. First, there’s the crisis that’s made 2009 The Year of the Deal in Asia, and many of these deals are being pushed online by suppliers.... Read More

I reported over the weekend that Hugh Crean, general manager of Bing Travel, is leaving the company, effective Oct. 23. Now, it turns out, that Jay Bartot , chief principal engineer at Bing Travel, will be following Crean out the door a few weeks later, in mid-November. The question now is whether Bing Travel can up the ante with much of the original team missing in action.... Read More

We can have a long debate about the merits of Twitter. It has its advocates as well its opponents. The reason I like Twitter is because the travel industry is so fragmented that it is a great mechanism to keep up with the zeitgeist. No other tool, website, conference or trade association is as effective at joining together so many people from all corners of the fragmented travel industry.... Read More

The Away Network, which traces its roots to 1999, has been true all these years to its initial focus on destinations. And, another advertising/media network, the TripAdvisor Media Network, found its footing during the same era with hotels as its core business. It would be simplistic to attribute the relative performance of these two advertising networks to that one key decision for each. But we all know which focus turned out to be the more strategic one as the much-largerTripAdvisor leads parent company Expedia Inc.’s media efforts around the world. So now, the Away Network plans to play a little catch-up with TripAdvisor.... Read More

Founded in 2004, the original name of Farecast in the incubation phase was Hamlet. Five years later, after having sold Farecast to Microsoft for $115 million and successfully integrating it into Bing last summer, Bing Travel General Manager Hugh Crean faced a Hamlet-like question. To stay or not to stay? Word has leaked out that Crean has decided to leave Bing Travel, effective Oct. 23.... Read More

As the tech world clammers for a closed beta invite of Google Wave, it is left to the lucky few to play around and report back. The original Google Wave Developer Preview clip on YouTube [views: 4.5 million and counting] gave a tantalising glimpse to the basics of the product. But now the wider web community is beginning to have a play with some of its features. Here is a quick overview of how the map functionality works. Critical, in GoogleWaveLand, for sharing travel plans.... Read More

The collapse of BlueSky Travel System is turning into a rather intriguing saga, as a number of parties central to the story battle it out as to what really happened in the run up to the company going under earlier this week. The confusion comes as Tnooz learns that a bid for the business was put on the table earlier today. Administrators MCR confirm a bid was received but will not disclose the value and source of the offer. But there now appears to be a major discrepancy between what Thomas Cook Group and the administrators are saying publicly about the contract at what appears to be at the heart of BlueSky's demise.... Read More

A couple of Tnooz posts about Microsoft Surface have me reaching for the reality-check button. The reason? Most travel agents, in the U.S. at least, still prefer to use DOS-like linear commands and time-worn scripts on their green-screen computers (the screen on Sabre’s actually is blue, I believe) as their preferred user interface. GUIs? Nah, too inefficient. So, TravelTainment is constructing a Microsoft Surface application for travel agents, and Sheraton apparently has one of the best Microsoft Surface applications in any vertical. At some of Sheraton’s U.S. locations, including the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers and the Sheraton Boston Hotel, guests apparently can run their fingertips along those cool-looking Surface tables and book restaurants and map their car routes.... Read More

Twitter being the social-network-of-the-moment that it is has managed to inspire many a company to examine how easy it might be – or not - to monetise its interconnectivity into a viable business. Step forward Inoqo, a Twitter based, late room availability site which has got some of the consumer and tech media excited since it launched last week. This is inevitable - Twitter has this affect on the media. But this isn’t a Twitter story at all - this is what Inoqo hopes will be a canny tale of travel distribution.... Read More

Mr and Mrs Smith, the UK-based luxe hotel guide and reservation brand, has come a long way in the past few years, especially given its latest decision to scrap a technology partnership to start from scratch and build its own booking system. An existing agreement with TravelIntelligence, which saw the review company's Starfish platform plugged into the back end of the Smith system, will come to an end in December 2009 to be replaced with a piece of technology created in-house. The decision to create SAMS - Smith Availability Management System - is one which affects many travel firms which have in the past used third party software to power critical parts of their business.... Read More

Figures from the latest annual SITA report into passenger habits at six major airport hubs around the globe were released today and make interesting reading. The study, SITA-Air Transport World Passenger Self-Service (PSS) Survey, examined a variety of factors which impact on the airport experience including web and self-service check-in, interaction with airlines via mobile and security issues. The standout stats centre on the increased use of self-service check-in at the airports featured in the survey.... Read More

Being a journalist I'm partial to a good headline. And I figured I needed something to grab attention for my first post on Tnooz. I'm delighted to be in such talented company, but I wonder if I've got anywhere near the experience or knowledge of my newly acquired peers. In fact, it's this that has got me thinking. What am I here for?... Read More