Originally Posted by
brian_dromey
How do Amadeus continue to sell product if it’s that bad? Surely the community is pretty small and word gets around/people move. If the product is expensive and support poor, how do they win tenders? I’m under the impression that Altea is quite flexible and powerful, but that comes at a steep cost. Airlines like LH and BA use it, AF/KL too. Seems to fall over quite a bit at BA though.
Is such a capable, powerful and expensive system really needed at an independent, low-cost regional airline? And will it be thrown out in short order when the VS brand takes over the BE flying?
Their real USP is the interline and codeshare functionality. In terms of other systems that are at the same level there's probably only Sabre which comes at a similar cost. Distributing codeshare is a pain in the backside but Amadeus have it cracked.
The real problem is that whenever a likely alternative starts to come onto the market one of the big 3 will buy it. Navitaire was bought by Amadeus and G2 switchworks was bought by Travelport. What carriers really want is the codeshare and interline capability of Altea with the customisation and flexibility of Navitaire. Amadeus have deliberately dragged their feet on this as the pricing is so different. A booking segment on Navitaire was less than $0.50....on Amadeus a codeshare segment can cost anything up to $8. They know that they have the airlines by the short and curlies hence the outcry when the biggest airlines develop workarounds via their own API solutions offering discounts. Agents are also incentivised to sell through the GDS by getting kickbacks that are funded by the airlines against their will!