Here we go again! As airlines run out of profit and money, the hunt is on for more bits and bob’s they can pass on, so as to keep “low” prices. It seems to me that the time has come to step back and take a deep breath.

Airline travel is not a cheap item. An Airbus costs a lot of money, so does the petrol, the crew, getting it up, getting it down, getting it loaded, off-loaded. Hell! Even parking the thing up, costs a lot more than £2.40 at the local NCP.

What we have here, is a situation where someone wants to sell a service cheaply, which inherently costs a lot of money to provide. A situation where one now wants to charge a reasonable fee for something which over the years, one has spent many thousands of Dollars telling the world (quite successfully, as it turns out) people can have for next to nothing. And people wonder why there is a problem.

The latest bette noir is the GDS cost – the cost of getting the seat from the aeroplane to the client. This should be paid for by the travel agent (online or offline) and …. Whoooah! Stop there. The travel agent is not going to pay for anything. The client will pay, always has done and always will. What has come about over the years, is a price for a service whereby one has somehow managed to fool the various advertising standards people, of many countries, that the £1.00 (or $1.00) that appears on the promotional stuff is a valid figure. It isn’t. What we really have, is an industry where “transparency” is not a word which features in their dictionary. Air fares are not transparent. Exactly the opposite. Many charges appear after the “fare” and are buried under various codes which are meaningless to the travelling public.

But let us go back further. What are airlines about? What do they really want to do? The so-called “low cost” airlines are about simple A to B stuff, 2 hours or less, you get exactly what it says on the tin and no more. Fair enough. They do not need the GDS (that said, it is getting increasingly difficult to track them down. From a business travel agent’s point of view, sites such as “Wegolo” are proving increasingly invaluable as a “low cost GDS”). For legacy airlines, it is a different picture and these airlines need to decide what business they are in and if they, indeed, wish to continue in it.

A lot of business travel is not about going from A to B. It is about going from A to B and C, D and very often E as well. It does not all start from the home country and involves bits of the world which involve many agents grasping for their atlas (or, in modern terms, Google Earth). Here, the GDS is invaluable. This is where it does it’s job. The thing is, many of these flights involve going from airline to airline, changes of flight at various points en route and lot of general fuss and what-not. The key elements in being able to do this are: 1) The ability to interline and 2) The relevance of the “minimum connecting time” or MCT. The former allows one to mix airlines on one ticket and the latter, to regulate the time one needs to make a change of airline. If all airlines go “me only” (that is, come off the GDS and go it alone on their own websites), the all flights become just, what is known as, “point to point”. So, if you want to go from, say, Cairo to Dublin via Larnaca (’cos that is where the connection is) in old money, you get, on one ticket: Cairo to Larnaca to Dublin. The airline would interline (hence, on one ticket) and the MCT applies so you can be booked thorough and so, you make your “1 hour and a bit” Larnaca connection – most importantly, if the connection goes all pear shaped, you are able to get on the next available connection without having to worry.

BUT – in new money, that does not happen. You can only buy a ticket Cairo to Larnanca and then have to buy another ticket Larnaca to Dublin. Now, the MCT does NOT apply. You have to arrive at Larnaca, collect your bags, go through security, walk around to departures, re-check-in… and how long should you allow? If you miss your connection flight, tough. Buy another ticket.

Even more (airline) stupidity: This interline traffic is valuable stuff. Since, secretly, airlines have been dumping cheaper interline fares what is left becomes worthwhile traffic. You must have a GDS to book it and invariably (now! here’s the rub!) you need an agent to book your travel. Many airline reservation department, these days, are staffed by pretty clueless types from all sorts of places whose training is very precise (no “holistic” travel training) and if what you want does not drop in front of them straight away, they just can’t cope. Indeed, getting them to tell you their name can be a major thing…. sometimes.

The GDS, therefore, contributes a major and vital element, not only in airline traffic but generally, in making the whole concept of business travel possible. The GDS systems have been fiddled with by the EEC and various other bodies who are intent on making a very clever and practical system, which works into a cumbersome and pedantic system that doesn’t. It is not a question of viewing the GDS as a cost to be moved, the GDS is a lifeline which should be nurtured and developed (and in the case of Amadeus, just made to ruddy well work sensibly) – it is a cost that should be in the price of the ticket, because without the GDS, advanced air travel would simply not work.