Business Travel News - September 14, 2009 - (Page 3)

NEWS New Air France U.S.Head Focuses On Integration It’s been a whirlwind couple of months for Christine Ourmières, who crossed the pond from the United Kingdom to New York City to head Air France-KLM’s U.S. division as vice president and general manager, effective July 1. Since replacing Jean-Claude Cros, who has moved to Paris to assume the title of deputy executive vice president of international and the Netherlands, Ourmières took over responsibility for Air France-KLM’s largest division outside of its home markets, worked closely with Delta Air Lines to integrate the carriers in an antitrustimmune joint venture, and is gearing up for a number of new U.S. service offerings, including the launch of the Airbus 380 and a new premium economy cabin this fall. After the official May 20 launch of the Delta-Air France-KLM joint venture, a lot has been done to integrate several airline brands into one joint venture—particularly on the corporate side, Ourmières said. She said Air France-KLM already has shifted to Delta’s Prism system for airline contract performance measurement, moved to Delta’s U.S. travel agency system, and converted a number of single-carrier corporate contracts to joint venture deals. “We decided to create one sales team in the U.S., under the leadership of Delta. To serve the needs of our customers, we wanted to have joint contracts as soon as possible,” Ourmières said. “We are in the process of joint contacting for trade and corporate. It’s amazing how many changes have already been done, not only on tools, but also in training and investment—and it’s not just Air France and Delta. At the same time, Delta and Northwest merged, so I am amazed at the capacity of these people to understand, learn and embrace change.” Ourmières said that Air FranceKLM and Delta are shifting corporate customers to joint contracts “at the speed of the renewal of the contracts. The idea is to convert as much as possible in the first year, and we are do- ing our utmost to convert as many contacts as possible.” Ourmières said some Delta and Air France-KLM systems already have been integrated. “For travel agencies and for corporate customers, we moved to Delta systems in the U.S., and Delta moved to the Air FranceKLM platform in Europe.” Ourmières sees the opportunity for further systems integration, and has completed some conversions, but said the immediate focus on both sides of the Atlantic has been joining teams that previously served their own brand to serve the joint venture. “IT is something that is crucial for us, but today we’re working more on changing teams,” Ourmières said. “You have Dutch and French people coming from the two pricing teams now based in Atlanta and the same in Europe, with people from Delta now placed in the joint venture team.” Ourmières added:“I’m a very pragmatic person. If we as a joint venture had the same IT, distribution and inventory management systems, it would be much simpler, but today TOM YIP NEWSMAKER we are different. We’re coming from a different market with different histories, and at the same time Delta and Northwest are coming together, and the new Air France-KLM has come a long way on harmonizing that platform. We’re still working on different systems. I’m not saying that’s the way forward, but we’re just finding a way to work together.” Air France-KLM also is gearing up for the November launch of Airbus A380 service on the New York JFKParis Charles de Gaulle route and the launch of Air France’s new premium economy class, Premium Voyageur, in late October. Most recently Air France-KLM general manager for the United Kingdom and Ireland, Ourmières has held a number of executive positions in information systems, sales, marketing and distribution since joining the carrier in 1988 to work in the maintenance department. Ourmières now is responsible for all U.S. operations, including sales, distribution, finance, marketing and airport operations, among others. —Jay Boehmer CONTENTS September 14, 2009 Issue 681 Vol. 26, No. 13 Vendors Test New Desktops BY SETH HARRIS Inside Track: HRG forecasts flat hotel rates . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Profiles In Travel Mgmt.: Broadcom seeks low fares. . . 8 7 Forum: Three-hour delay rule rubs pilot wrong. . . . . . . 11 HOTEL REBID MODEL Aviation: GDS CEOs see smoother airline talks . . . . . 12 NBTA hotel committee co-chair Kazimer. Lodging: Concur, Starwood announce e-folio link . . . 14 Travel Management: CWT restructures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 EuroBTN: Buyers fight KLM agency card use fee . . . . 18 FIND DAILY NEWS UPDATES AND MORE AT WWW.BTNONLINE.COM BTN (USPS 0728-870, ISSN 8750-3670) is published semi-monthly, except monthly in January, February, May, July and December, by Nielsen Business Media Inc.,770 Broadway,New York,NY 10003,tel.646-654-5000,and is distributed free of charge to qualified corporate travel buyers and travel agents specializing in business travel in the United States and Canada. The cost of a subscription to non-qualified subscribers is $119 in the U.S.; $135 in Canada; $135 in Mexico and Central America; $200 in South America and Europe; and $200 in Asia,Africa and Australia; payable in advance in U.S. dollars. Registered for GST as Nielsen Business Media Inc. USA GST No. 124513185. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. 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Amadeus Americas and Travelport GDS are poised to begin wider testing of their new agent point-of-sale desktop tools following more than a year’s worth of development and technology integration. Meanwhile, travel technology firm Farelogix also is planning the release of its multisource agent desktop, which targets the midsize and regional agency market. This next generation of desktop tools scrap the cryptic green-screen environment in favor of primarily graphical user interfaces that purport to enable agents to use multisource content with greater customization capabilities and increase productivity by, for example, bringTRAVELPORT GDS’s GORDON WILSON, PAGE 12 ing some mid-office quality control ON THE RECORD “With American carriers, talks are commencing, but anybody who thinks the GDSs are just going to drop prices again willy-nilly is living in cloud cuckoo land.” Continued on page 6 Business Travel News www.BTNonline.com Monday, September 14, 2009 3 http://WWW.BTNONLINE.COM http://www.BTNonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Business Travel News - September 14, 2009

Business Travel News - September 14, 2009
Contents
Inside Track
Profiles In Travel Management
Forum
Aviation
Lodging
Travel Management
EuroBTN

Business Travel News - September 14, 2009