Distribution Systems
Budget airlines break ground with new booking system
December 1st 2016
Air Black Box (ABB), the UK-based multi-carrier booking system, whose platform facilitated the launch of the low-cost carrier Value Alliance, has attracted two Asia-Pacific carriers as investors. Read More »
Cebu Pacific, the biggest carrier by passengers in the Philippines and Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) have joined Scoot, Nok Air and VaultPAD Ventures in funding ABB Asia Pacific. ANA operates the LCC, Vanilla Air, and is a joint venture investor in another Japanese LCC, Peach Aviation. The Singapore Airlines Group owns Scoot and Thai Airways International is a part owner of Nok Air.
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Two founding members of the Value Alliance – Vanilla Air under ANA Holdings, and Cebu Pacific – have each acquired a 15% shareholding in the new company. Scoot and Nok Air also are investors in the company.
Members of the alliance are Cebu Pacific and its subsidiary Cebgo, Jeju Air, Nok Air, NokScoot, Scoot, Tigerair Singapore, Tigerair Australia and Vanilla Air. They formed their partnership in May to enable direct interline ticket and ancillary sales between member airlines in one booking, a breakthrough made possible with ABB’s platform.
The distribution solution provided by ABB, the world’s first multi-carrier interlining and booking system, remains the only cloud-based tool capable of providing the interlining needed by members of the budget alliance.
Value Alliance members cooperate across a combined route network of more than 160 destinations. Using ABB, customers can view, select and book available fares on flights from any of the airlines in the Alliance in one transaction directly from each partner’s website.
ABB Asia-Pacific general manager, Mildred Cheng, said: “We are in talks with some airlines. I can’t reveal who they are, but you can see where the alliance’s coverage is lacking right now geographically,” she said, and added the markets of China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia are prime targets for ABB Asia-Pacific.
ABB technology also allows for expansion to bilateral interline partnerships, she said. For example, Scoot’s website could interline transactions with a full-service carrier from Europe that doesn’t belong to the Value Alliance. The benefits of interlining, as opposed to joint ventures or codeshares, are that airlines can cross-merchandise their products without compromising their brand integrity, she said. It is expected the eight members of the Value Alliance will be integrated with the ABB platform in the first quarter of 2017.
