Delegates from the business travel industry emerged optimistic after a meeting with EC officials on the plans to de-regulate GDSs in Europe.
In a joint statement, Kevin Mitchell of the Business Travel Coalition (BTC), Jonathan French from the International Airline Passengers' Association (IAPA), Nora Buysschaert, president of the Belgian Association of Travel Management (BATM) and Paul Tilstone of the UK Institute of Travel Management (ITM) said: "By objective measures the meeting could not have gone better.
"Our team was well prepared and delivered an impassioned appeal for keeping the core protections, removing GDS pricing rules and otherwise streamlining or eliminating most of the Code.
"It would appear from our meeting, and other sources of intelligence from within the EC, that our proposal is in alignment with the Commission's current thinking."
The meeting with Olivier Onidi, head of unit at the Directorate General Transport and Energy (DG TREN) and his colleague Frank Laurent, is one of many that senior EC executives are holding with stakeholders as they consider de-regulation of the GDSs.
At the 90 minute meeting in Brussels, the business travel delegation presented five key points for any proposals to de-regulate the 1989 code of Conduct for CRSs.
These were:
* the importance of content to GDSs, buyers and travel management companies
* the possibility of GDS-owning airlines withholding content or weakening the competitive position of rival GDSs
* the need for CRS rules to create a consumer driven marketplace, not a supplier driven one,
* the necessity of maintaining mandatory participation, keeping the ban on commission tying, eliminating GDS pricing rules, maintaining the ban on screen bias and streamlining or eliminating the balance of the rules.
* the need for an efficient and competitive market place.
Mr Tilstone also presented some of ITM's research results which indicated that buyers felt there were other ways suppliers influenced the market to their detriment.
* see BTE Analysis
* see BTE's recruitment site www.businesstraveljobs.com