The region's low cost carriers (LCCs) have come under scrutiny by Travel Management Companies (TMCs) who claim the former's booking systems slow down transaction times.
"For us, the travel agent portals are poor for our business," said Dnata Travel Services divisional senior vice president Iain Andrew, addressing KSA LCC Sama at an Arabian Travel News roundtable staged at last month's Business Travel Show Dubai.
"It's not just learning your (Sama's) system; it's learning that of Jazeera Airways, Air India Express, Air Arabia. We already have training issues in terms of making sure our staff are up to speed with the GDS. If you add all of those on top there are huge operational issues. We have to focus on low transaction times by integrating with airline systems, but I don't think online portals are the future and anyone who works on that [assumption] is going to fail."
However, Sama CEO Andrew Cowen insisted that the airline's internet booking system was "simple enough for a travel professional" to use and said any TMC or agent who refused to use the system or that of any LCC was ignoring customer demand because of their back office processes: "There are hundreds of agents and I can't adapt my system to each agent," he added.
After a healthy debate, Cowen and Andrew decided that airlines should provide a "standard interface" that agents could tap into, while Michel Oulevay, regional director of partners network MEA, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, said his company had already developed software to enable staff to enter the websites of more than 50 LCCs: "We don't have any Middle East LCCs in the system yet, but I don't think it will be long before we do," he explained.
The debate came just days before Ryanair branded travel agents the "costliest parasites" in the travel industry.
The statement was a reaction to rival easyJet signing distribution deals with GDS providers Amadeus and Galileo, enabling corporate agents to view and book flights alongside other carriers to make comparisons.
Ryanair communications head Peter Sharrad slammed easyJet as a "high fares airline" and said its GDS investment would do nothing but force fares to go higher.
He said travel agents were "the greatest deadwood (and cost) of the travel industry".
But Galileo's Bryan Conway, EMEA managing director for Travelport GDS, argued that travel agents were "crying out for an easy integrated and more reliable way to access easyJet".
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