Business Travel News - December 17, 2007 - (Page 8)

NEWS Washington Wire CONTINENTAL, TSA LAUNCH PAPERLESS BOARDING INITIATIVE Continental Airlines is testing a new paperless boarding system in cooperation with the Transportation Security Administration that allows passengers to electronically store boarding information on cell phones or personal digital assistants. The move, aimed at improving security by reducing the possible use of fraudulent boarding passes, also may improve customer service, the government and airline said. The technology works by transferring a paperless boarding pass containing a two-dimensional bar code that can be verified by TSA officials using handheld scanners to the passenger’s electronic device. It is intended to counteract a potential security weakness with Internet checkin, as bar codes cannot be altered once they’re sent to the phone or PDA. The TSA said the pilot program, which is being tested only on nonstop flights, is consistent with the global standard set by the International Air Transport Association requiring bar coding of boarding passes. If successful, it may be expanded to other airlines. Amadeus Launches Hotel Platform BY MICHAEL B. BAKER IRS HIKES 2008 PER-MILE VEHICLE REIMBURSEMENT The Internal Revenue Service next year will raise the allowable vehicle reimbursement rate to 50.5 cents per mile, which is the highest rate in history. The higher rate largely is attributed to growth in the cost of fuel and other vehicle expenses and is up from the 2007 rate of 48.5 cents per mile and the 2006 rate of 44.5 cents per mile. HOUSE APPROVES ALLOWING PILOTS TO FLY UNTIL 65 The U.S. House of Representatives last week adopted legislation that would let commercial airline pilots remain flying until age 65, provided there is a copilot under the age of 60 in the cockpit. Pilots currently must leave the cockpit at 60. The House voted unanimously in favor of the measure after stripping it from a broader bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, which has been stalled by disagreements with the Senate. Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the separate vote was necessary to prevent a rash of mandatory retirements of experienced pilots at the same time passenger loads are increasing. FAA foreREP. OBERSTAR casts that airlines are expected to carry more than 1 billion passengers by 2015, and that retirements among airline pilots will rise 173 percent from 2003 to 2008 compared with 1993 to 1998. “It is imperative that we move this critical piece of legislation immediately,” Oberstar said in a Dec. 11 speech on the House floor. “Each day that passes without raising the retirement age to 65 means approximately five of our most experienced pilots will be forced to retire.” FAA agreed to extend the mandatory retirement age earlier this year in keeping with international standards after heavy lobbying by Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways, two low-cost carriers that don’t have traditional pension plans that make it more expensive to employ pilots as they get older. FAA’s change would have taken at least two years to implement, prompting the legislation. The bill next goes to the Senate, which has voted in favor of earlier versions of the measure as part of the stalled budget legislation. Amadeus last week announced it has migrated the 75,000 hotels on its global distribution system onto a new platform that enhances searching capabilities and eventually will allow for a new user interface with a best available rate program and a global commission retrieval mechanism. The new platform, running on the Linux operating system, defines hotels by 100 attributes, enabling users to search by such amenities as swimming pools and hoteliers to display more information about available rooms, accordFor the latest breaking news, ing to Amadeus. With the platform in place, Amadeus see btnonline.com/bn plans to expand on its searching capabilities. The platform will allow hotels to centralize their technology infrastructure, reducing costs, according to Antoine Medawar, managing director of Amadeus’ hospitality business unit. “The hotel industry is one of the world’s biggest in terms of transactions processed, but the industry’s IT processes remain fragmented and unready to cope with the enormous increase in transactions as more hotels are booked online,” Medawar said. Amadeus also announced it would offer a new user interface for travel agencies in 2008. The interface will include a best available rate program so agencies can be assured the rates they receive are as competitive as those on other distribution channels. Such rate programs have been a focus for GDSs in recent months. Sabre in June launched its Rate Assured hotel certification program, which canvasses rates through hotel market information provider Rubicon and checks up to 235 sites on a weekly basis. Galileo in 2004 launched a best available rate program in which more than 100 hotel chains are participating (BTN, July 9). Amadeus also is piloting a worldwide commission manager that will track commissions due agents from participating hotels. Although airfares often get the lion’s share of attention in GDS discussions, Amadeus and its competitors in the distribution arena recently have put focus on improving hotel distribution. In addition to content and technological offerings, GDSs also have been adding to the volume of properties available. Amadeus, for example, said it has added 10,000 hotels a year since 2005. ■ mbaker@btnonline.com ■ Buyers Making Budget Adjustments Continued from page 1 GAO CRITICIZES FAA RUNWAY SAFETY EFFORTS The Government Accountability Office called on the Federal Aviation Administration to take strong steps to reduce the risk of a catastrophic airline collision after concluding the agency suffers from a lack of leadership and the absence of a national runway plan. GAO, in a study released Dec. 5, echoed similar findings by the National Transportation Safety Board and other watchdog groups that not enough is being done to make runways safer. While serious incidents declined, the overall incidence of near-collisions rose 12 percent to 371 last year, GAO said. GAO said FAA hasn’t updated its runway plan in five years. “The lack of an updated plan has resulted in uncoordinated runway-safety efforts by individual FAA offices,” GAO said. FAA said that runway safety remains a top priority. Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has legislative jurisdiction over FAA, said the report shows FAA has “regressed” in terms of aviation safety. “Despite spending billions on runway safety over the last five years, the GAO found that the Federal Aviation Administration’s lack of coordination and leadership, technology challenges, the lack of data and human factor-related issues have seriously hindered significant progress on runway safety,” Oberstar said, adding that funding in a stalled FAA reauthorization bill would help the agency improve its goals. —Patty Donmoyer & Jay Boehmer to Maria McSorley, manager of corporate travel and special events for the West Caldwell, N.J.-based office equipment supplier. “You start out with the assumption that you have no travel budget, so that everything that you do spend on travel has to be absolutely necessary,” said McSorley, who budgets on a March to April fiscal calendar. International forest products company Weyerhaeuser has set a 5 percent to 8 percent increase in all travel categories in expectation of rising costs next year and already has seen a reduction in trips, as management has asked employees to be more “discretionary” when booking travel, according to director of travel, meetings, food service, fleet and transportation Suzanne Fletcher. The company has added a field to its online booking tool for employees to state the reason for traveling. “It’s not just Big Brother, but it also helps understand where our travel dollars are going,” Fletcher said. Super-regional travel management company Travel and Transport’s client population on average is planning for moderate increases in total travel trips. The TMC’s top 15 corporate accounts plan an average increase of 5.56 percent in total trips next year, while its remaining accounts—roughly 500—project a 0.33 percent increase, according to Travel and Transport president and CEO Bill Tech. “They are trying to cut back where they can,” Tech said. “Because of the increased ticket prices, they are trav- eling less frequently or they are taking less people with them. Where maybe two or three would go previously, maybe only one will go with them now.” Regional TMC Casto Travel also has heard clients’ concerns about economic pressures, but president and COO Marc Casto said that buyers have increased their budgets from 5 percent to 15 percent, especially for organizations with heavy international travel. “There is that general concern our clients are expressing, but we are not seeing that in the numbers they are reporting in their budgets,” he said. With the weakening dollar, Casto said there has been a heavier scrutiny on T&E per diems, especially by companies that send employees to Europe. “In our experience with clients in the San Francisco Bay Area market, travel policies and mandates tend to be on the loose side. We are noticing the increased management of it,” Casto said. While not all travel programs are feeling the squeeze, Priscilla Campbell, practice leader of hotel advisory services for American Express Business Travel, said buyers this year asked for budget consultation and data in late spring and early summer, which is earlier than previous years. “Corporations are not only feeling the strain of the weakening dollar if they travel internationally, but also the rising costs in the travel industry are really putting the strain on budgets,” she said. “Certainly, understanding exactly what was going to hapContinued on page 25 Business http://btnonline.com/bn http://www.btnonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Business Travel News - December 17, 2007

Contents
Amex to Go End to End
Hood Back at BCD
AirTran First Sabre XML Airline
Inside Track
MasterCard Upgrades Reporting, Data
Amadeus Debuts Hotel Platform
Washington Wire
Kodak Moment
Travel Management
Forum
Mtg. Buyers Give Carriers Lower Marks
Meetings Today
Drawing Boards
Black Book Contents
Airlines
Private Jets/Charter
Associations
Car Rental Companies
Conference Centers
Consultants
Lawyers
Travel Management
Travel Security
Travel Technology
Ground Transportation Companies
Education
Hotel Chains
Corporate Housing
Hotel Management Companies
Hotel Rep Firms
International Business Services
Payment Systems
Technology
Back-Office Accounting
Data Consolidation and Reporting
Hotel Program Services
Meetings Management
Miscellaneous
Reservation Systems
T&E Expense Management
Travel Management Companies
Travel Angency Networks

Business Travel News - December 17, 2007