Introduction
Corporate travel remains one of the most profitable business segments for airlines, enabling the creation and maintenance of premium sources of income, the achievement of repeat sales, and the establishment of sound corporate relationships. As airlines increasingly turn to NDC and newer retailing strategies, corporate travel systems become crucial in terms of distributions, offers, and booking processes.
Why Corporate Travel Matters More Than Ever
Corporate Travel at a Glance
- High Value Segment: Such travels include companies that carry numerous and frequent trips.
- Optimization of Contracts: Utilizing contracts with companies means the maximum advantage from flying agreements.
- High Revenue: Long-term corporate agreements generate repeat bookings and reliable revenue throughout the year.
- Loyalty: Together with direct interaction, the company maintains stronger and long-term connections with clients.
Key Distribution Challenges
- Distribution Overlap: Traveling is conducted using an old system of different systems and services.
- Missing Data: Airlines lack access to real-time information about passengers’ travels.
- Disciplinary Problems: Complex flight negotiation process is hard to manage in practice.
- High Service Cost: Trips with lots of changes and cancellation result in high service costs using an old technology.
- Restrictions to Selling: There are limited opportunities for personalized selling of tickets.
The Shift Toward Modern Corporate Travel Platforms
In modern days, airline portals are not just a basic online booking tool. These websites have evolved into strategic digital centers that allow airlines to oversee their relationships with corporations and at the same time support modern API-first retailing.
Core Capabilities
- Management of corporate accounts and tiering
- Fare and contract management
- Management of employee profiles and corporate IDs
- Policy compliance and multi-level approvals
- NDC-enabled distribution architecture
- Sale of additional services and dynamic bundling
- Real-time corporate analytics and reporting
- Flexible pricing and personalized contract-based offers
Top 10 Corporate Travel Solutions for Airlines
- Amadeus
Amadeus allows airlines to distribute corporate travel content through Altéa NDC and Navitaire NDC Gateway with which the airline companies can offer negotiated corporate pricing to the corporate booking agents and other booking agents directly. By being a part of Amadeus GDS system the airline companies will be able to distribute corporate travel content to TMCs and agencies in an effective manner.
- Sabre
Sabre offers airline companies a platform called Mosaic, which can help airlines in creation and distribution of corporate offers by using functionality of NDC and Retail Suite. The Corporate Insights module of the system provides the airlines with valuable capabilities related to contract outcome evaluation.
- Travelport
Travelport+ refers to a contemporary retailing solution that gathers EDIFACT, NDC, and budget airline content under a mutual distribution framework. This allows airlines to present negotiated fares and private offers, along with personalized packages, with the help of corporate booking sites, travel agencies, and other distribution methods.
ADO is a corporate travel distribution platform owned by Infiniti Software Solutions. This platform helps airlines in managing corporate sales activities through a single integrated travel distribution platform. ADO has the added functionalities of contract management, corporate bookings, enforcement of travel policies, approvals, and corporate account management via which the airlines can strengthen their corporate relationships and facilitate their operations.
- Navitaire
Navitaire’s New Skies platform allows airlines to deploy dedicated corporate booking portals for tailoring bookings and managing payment methods for corporate clients. Besides, this solution simplifies Self-service booking and managing accounts as well as optimizing direct airline-to-corporate interaction.
- Accelya
Accelya’s FLX ONE technology that allows airlines to develop and distribute dynamic corporate offers based on NDC technology. This allows airlines to offer tailor-made packages as well as make use of AI-based search optimization.
- IBS Software
IBS Software offers iFly Corporate, a cloud-based self-booking platform that allows airlines to reach their corporate customers, including both small and medium companies as well as multi-national enterprises. The tool allows airlines to control the process of booking corporate travel by offering corporate fares and providing policies for travel management.
- Verteil
Through its Direct Connect platform Verteil provides an NDC-based connecting platform that can help airlines link their corporate booking tools with travel agencies via one API. This solution makes the integration process much easier.
- Datalex
Through its Direct platform Datalex offers airlines the opportunity to build their own corporate booking portals that include corporate booking rates, travel profiles, and booking engines, thus reducing reliance on the channels of distribution used by travel brokers.
- Spotnana
Spotnana is a Travel-as-a-Service platform that uses cloud-native technology and direct airline connection to support corporate travel distribution in the modern world with the help of an API-first architecture.
The Future of Corporate Travel Distribution
Corporate travel is a central piece of the modern airline sales landscape. As NDC technologies continue to develop and the industry moves ever closer to full Offer & Order management capabilities, the era of traditional PNRs and e-tickets is coming to an end.
The development and use of corporate portals will be vital for airlines in adapting to this transition. By adopting modern technologies in corporate travel today, airlines will be able to provide valuable tailored experiences that come at a significantly lower cost, bringing them higher profits in the future of digital air travel sales.
