TravTalk Middle East Online Magazine
IndiGo Airlines went live on Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform in India on November 24, as part of an agreement between the two parties that was signed in September this year.
Nisha Verma
Celebrating the launch of IndiGo’s fares and ancillaries to all travel agencies on Travelport’s integrated platform, Aditya Ghosh, President & Whole Time Director, IndiGo, and Gordon Wilson, President and CEO, Travelport, discussed the opportunities that they can offer to travel agents and consumers alike.
“With IndiGo going live on the Travelport platform, it means that travel agencies in India can have access to IndiGo with the same fares, content and ancillaries on Travelport as they can on IndiGo’s website or IndiGo’s API. What is progressive about this move is that we are taking it international and making IndiGo available to all travel agencies online or offline using the Travelport system in 180 countries, from where they can generate sales,” says Wilson.
However, IndiGo did take its time to come on board as Ghosh explains, “LCCs traditionally were not on the GDS, but Travelport was the first GDS to be able to bring on board Ryanair and easyJet. I believe Southwest Airlines is also on another GDS platform, which makes three of the largest LCCs in the world in the last couple of years to have figured in the GDS. This gave us the confidence to sign up with a GDS and Travelport itself has undergone a change and evolution, which works in our favour.”
Speaking on how the travel agents are going to benefit with this, especially when the prices on IndiGo’s website and the GDS are same, Ghosh says, “Travel agents are a very important part of our business and more than two third of our business comes from travel agencies, both online and offline. This will help travel agents access IndiGo content around the world at more than 68,000 customer touch points, and in a much more seamless manner they will be able to see the inventory on the same screen. They don’t have to toggle through different screens. We don’t have any differential pricing and all the ancillary products are available. Thus, life is much easier for travel agents.”
Wilson adds, “People usually book packages with travel agencies, which involves hotels, tours and comparison and consultation. Customers go to the travel agents for a variety of reasons. In fact, the international travel agencies can advise their customers about IndiGo and its connections in India, which is now available on the Travelport platform.”
Gordon, also said he is bullish on the Indian market. “We have been here for 20 years and that helps in building new opportunities. India is the third biggest GDS market by air bookings in the world today, much bigger than the UK and very close to Germany, which is Number 2. We are only seeing an acceleration in this market because a huge number of Indian population is moving from trains to planes. There is an increasing investment from India, which is causing trade to come into India and is boosting outbound travel from India as well. IndiGo has been at the forefront of this growth and offering international connections as well. Thus, we are very positive on the Indian market overall.”
