Travelport and United Airlines extended their content agreement two years, and as part of the pact travel agencies hooked up to the Apollo, Galileo and Worldspan global distribution systems should be able to offer the airline's Economy Plus seating later this year.
Travelport says agencies connected to its GDSs and using the Apollo Focalpoint, Galileo Desktop and Worldspan GoRes desktops will get the capability later this year to book these United premium seats within their transaction flow.
"Travelport will also integrate these merchandising capabilities over time into the Travelport Universal Desktop, making it easier for Travelport-connected agents around the world to transact this premium coach seat capability within their standard workflow," Travelport says.
From a technical standpoint, one might assume Travelport could have gained access to United's Economy Plus seating sooner than the stated timetable since Travelport's Apollo GDS hosts United's internal reservation system.
However, Sabre beat Travelport in providing access for Sabre-connected agents to United Economy Plus by a good stretch of time.
Sabre gave its agents that capability in early 2009.
The development occurs as the GDSs are sparring with airlines over the introduction of standards as a way to deliver airline ancillary services to travel agents through GDSs. The Airlines Reporting Corp. is testing Electronic Miscellaneous Documents as a means of settling payments for ancillary services and is slated to introduce them in the fall.
All of United's published fares, including Web fares, and seat inventory would be made available to Travelport GDS subscribers, under the terms of the Travelport-United extension through 2013, Travelport says.
Travelport's extension of its content agreement with United through 2013 follows a similar extension with Continental, which was announced last month.
With regulatory approval, the two airlines would merge in the fourth quarter.