Within the next week, the airline industry will deploy a new
ATPCO tool that enables airlines to relax restrictions on already-issued
tickets.
The Emergency Flexibility tool, set to be adopted by the
airline industry on 7 June, is an automated method for changing rules around
ticket changes, enabling tickets bought prior to the Covid-19 crisis to be
updated to comply with newer rules regarding change fee waivers and validity
periods. ATPCO worked with more than 60 airlines and the major global
distribution systems to develop it.
"What it's doing is allowing airlines to communicate
Covid-19 policies and have it be automated and consistent across all
channels," ATPCO head of standards and governance David Smith said.
The automation will also ensure agents and travellers can
understand the flexibility rules put in place by different airlines without
having to do the manual work of going through their policies, he said. It will
be complemented by ATPCO's recently introduced "reassurance" metric
that provides information regarding flexibility as well as information on
sanitisation methods employed by airlines at the time of booking.
Delta Air Lines managing director of commercial delivery and
development Sara Reid said the work goes alongside that being done at airlines,
including extending ticket databases to ensure that tickets do not expire.
"We had to work across all parties," Reid said.
"The volume of unused tickets is unprecedented, so we're all about
customer flexibility and as much automation as possible for our industry
partners."
All major GDSs, including Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport and
Travelsky, plan to go live with the tool within the next week, according to
ATPCO.