Air France-KLM could be the last of the major airline groups to introduce a fee for passengers that book tickets through the global distribution systems.
The group brought in a surcharge after similar moves by fellow European carrier giants, Lufthansa and International Airlines Group (owner of British Airways, Iberia et al) in September 2015 and November 2017, respectively.
AF-KLM later allowed the GDSs to connect to its "private channel" for existing, non-surcharged tickets for their corporate customers.
Still, some commentators predicted that, house-of-cards-style, a string of other airlines would follow suit once it appeared there was some kind of momentum amongst some of the biggest carriers in the world.
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Speaking to PhocusWire last week following the release of Travelport's first quarter earnings for 2018, CEO and president Gordon Wilson says the shift to introduce surcharges and private channels could be at an end.
"I don't really see the private channel getting much traction outside of Europe and the Big Three [IAG/AF-KLM/LH]," he says.
"The possible exception could be Australasia, because there's a big domestic market there."
Wilson believes that the situation is North America is different to the more fragmented market in Europe, thus why similar moves are less likely, American Airlines and its $1 discount notwithstanding.
"There seems to be more of an equilibrium in the U.S., where it's Full Content deals and business as usual," Wilson believes.
His comment were echoed earlier in the week by Sean Menke, CEO and president of rival distribution network Sabre.
Bigger picture
Talking to analysts to coincide with its own Q1 earnings for 2018, Menke says: "We just renewed our agreement with the United Airlines. That's on top of a renewed agreement with Delta Airlines last year.
"The one thing that I will share as it relates to American Airlines is, we have been in discussions with them and have brought really a cross-section of team members together from American as well as Sabre to assess what is really a win-win agreement that is broad and all-encompassing. And that level of engagement between the two organizations has been very productive."
Wilson believes that other major global carriers, such as Emirates and some in Asia Pacific, are likely to adopt a "mix and match" model of offering some fares via NDC-only connectivity and others through the GDS, allowing Travelport to use its "multi-source content" tools.
With regards to European carriers, Menke says: "A little under half of them are really the high yielding international traffic that's out there. And that's really important to international carriers because it's the higher yielding traffic that's out there."
He believes there has been around a 10% shift from indirect to direct with the case of Lufthansa, but thereafter it has been "relatively flat."
Menke concludes: "When you look at retailing, distribution and fulfillment and how that really ties back to how we're looking at our Travel Network business and how we're looking at Airline Solutions and the enablement, it's to help them find ways of driving that additional revenue to compete in the marketplace."