Penny for the thoughts of easyJet


EasyJet has a distribution dilemma.

About 18 months ago the budget airline made concessions to the business travel market opening up access to its inventory via an API to Amadeus and Travelport. Sabre joined the pair earlier this year.

Then, last year, came distribution deals with Multicom and Comtec, again on the face of it targeting the corporate marketing. But, those two companies are known for their distribution in the leisure space and more importantly including the UK's big two operators.

Was the airline testing the water with the leisure market to see whether the four Euros per segment would add up to significant enough volume to keep a link open?

With players such as Co-op Travel, TUI and Thomas Cook potentially involved and sources saying the API accounts for 9% of all bookings (and predominantly leisure) it sounds like a sizeable chunk of business.

EasyJet is now believed to be reviewing those leisure bookings. Could it get them to go direct to the website? - Possibly not, if they haven't so far.

The carrier needs the revenue from ancillary accommodation sales and so deals with accommodation providers in the past two weeks would suggest it is widening its consumer offering to cover all bases.

That might attract a few more people direct but this year consumers are shopping around a lot more, tapping into traditional agents and the internet - direct websites, online agents and meta search sites.

If, as insiders suggest, easyJet switches off its leisure agents from September, do all those players go back to screen-scraping? 

If that's the case then no one has learnt a thing and easyJet may as well have adopted the Ryanair stance.

Other factors to watch are easyJet's legal proceedings against InteRes in Germany and Multicom's complaint to Brussels over Ryanair and screen-scraping.

Oh and by the way, according to a slot on the BBC's Working Lunch this week, MPs believe the whole principle of cheapest fares online is unfair - so they could wade in at any time!

Anyone for a summer of closed doors and intense meetings?

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