A new Brussels-based organisation has been formed to lobby the European Commission on like GDS de-regulation.
C-FARE, the Coalition for Fair Access to Reservations in Europe, formed last week, said that total deregulation of the computer-reservations system industry in Europe would be bad news for European travellers as long as Amadeus, Europe's largest CRS, is owned by airlines.
The founding members of the group include Amadeus rivals Galileo International and Sabre Holdings. Other members include e-bookers, AERTICKET, the Business Travel Coalition, Navigant, Travel Overland and Tui4U.com.
Mr Brandon Mitchener, a former journalist and consultant with Washington-based independent travel consultancy APCO and now executive director of C-FARE, said: “The group has start-up capital from Galileo and Sabre which basically get the impression that the EC is not listening to them but is listening to Amadeus. This is not just a spat between CRSs.
“Our purpose is to get our message to the EC and seek meetings with EC for Sabre and Galileo executives.”
Mr Mitchener said C-FARE had already written an open letter to three EC Commissioners, Jacques Barrot (Transport), Neelie Kroes (Competition) and Markos Kyprianou (Consumer Protection).
He said that despite the sale of Amadeus, Air France, Lufthansa and Iberia would still hold stakes in the GDS.
“Europe's not ready to abandon some basic, time-honoured consumer safeguards in the travel reservation business, and won't be as long as major airlines continue to own or control key travel reservation services,” he said.
Mr Mitchener said the campaign had the backing of European consumer groups and European travel agents and more organisations were expected to join in the coming weeks. But he added: “A lot are reluctant to join because they are afraid of Amadeus and the airline owners. They fear retaliation.”