Monday, April 23, 2007

The Kraken and Singapore airlines

Singapore airlines ancillary services online services have been (for a long time) seen as one of the great last frontiers of online travel. Here you have the top airline of Asia with natural online traffic out of the US, Europe, Asia and Australia but with nothing for sale online other than air. Everyone turned up to see them with offers for white label car, hotel, destination services and packaging technology. But Singapore held strong - "we can do it all ourselves". Now finally - more than half a dozen years after the low cost carriers bit the good time bug of hotel commissions, Singapore Airlines has signed for some white label goodness with Octopustravel (according to Internet Travel News). Jokes aside this is a big move for Singaporeair. Unless I'm mistaken this is their first foray into non-air or air services online and they are going outside of their traditional suppliers of ground product. It could show a huge shift in their approach to online direct revenue.

However I am not sure that it will prove to be a huge money maker for Travelport/GTA. As big a brand as Singapore airlines is, the traffic online to air suppliers is still based around short haul, point to point, web discounted fares - not long haul. That said - congrats team Octopus for closing the unclosable deal.

1 comment:

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