|
contents | technologies | |||||||
| Worldspan adopts new ATPCO solution for airlines Global travel technology provider Worldspan, L.P. announced it has successfully implemented the new automated Service Fees solution from Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO), which automates and standardizes the filing, distribution and pricing of airline fuel and insurance fees associated with today's airfares. Having successfully completed testing on October 14, 2005, the new solution became effective for all Worldspan participating carriers on October 23, 2005. Worldspan is first to market with this important new solution, demonstrating its superior commitment to enabling customers with the most advanced technological capabilities possible. Identified within the airline industry as YQ or YR fees, these fuel and insurance fees vary by airline as well as individual fares. Prior to ATPCO's development of the new Service Fees solution, no standardized data entry fields existed for airlines to input or append the respective fees to their fares-a process that was handled manually, on a per-carrier basis, and therefore subject to error. The new solution is designed to accommodate today's diverse and constantly changing fee structures, and most important, ensure a single, consistent and timely point of transmission for carrier fee data via ATPCO. "Every participant in travel distribution, particularly airlines, will benefit greatly from improved timeliness, standardization and accuracy in the distribution of all components of published and private airfares, " said Kevin Ficco, vice president - Airline Distribution and Business Development for Worldspan. "Worldspan continually strives to meet the needs of our airline partners and to address industry change. Improvement in this area was necessary, and we quickly recognized that ATPCO's Service Fee solution would be good for airlines, good for the industry and good for travelers." "ATPCO appreciates the opportunity to engage with proactive partners like Worldspan in developing innovative solutions for the airline industry, " said Rolf Purzer, vice president and general manager - Product Development and Marketing for ATPCO. "We're pleased to be working in association with Worldspan and their airline customers globally on this important industry development." The previous manual fuel and insurance fee filing process resulted in lost time and data entry errors in which carriers' intended charges did not always match charges reflected on tickets or travel documents, once issued. In addition to time and cost inefficiencies, such errors also resulted in airline debit memos to ticket issuers. The new automated solution enables Worldspan to guarantee all automatically priced fares through its GDS, including YQ/YR fees, for itineraries at the time tickets are issued. Effective October 23, 2005, Worldspan began receiving all YQ/YR updates on carrier fees directly from ATPCO, rather than manually coding updates and instructions from airlines. Effective October 31, 2005, Worldspan discontinued the collection of all manually coded YQ/YR fees. The new automated Services Fees solution allows airlines to code fee data themselves into new, specifically designated YQ/YR Service Fees records in ATPCO's Fare Manager system, or provide the information to ATPCO for entry on behalf of the carriers. Airlines that file fares with SITA, another centralized airline fare distributor, may also code data directly into ATPCO's system. Additionally, airlines have the flexibility to make additions or changes through any or all of ATPCO's regularly scheduled international fare rule transmissions, which are made available to participating carriers five times per day, Monday through Friday, three times on Saturdays and two times on Sundays. write your comments about the article :: © 2005 Networking News :: home page |