Immigration department extends e-passport deadline to November

The Immigration Department has silently extended the December 31, 2021 deadline for the phasing out of the old generation passport.

The Interior Ministry on February 4, 2021, extended the deadline to December 31, citing the Covid-19 pandemic that forced the Immigration department to scale down its operations.

In its statement announcing the extension of the process to phase out the old passport, the ministry said the extension would be the last and advised Kenyans to acquire the electronic passport to avoid travelling inconveniences.

The Interior Ministry said starting January 1 this year, the old dark blue passport would be null and void, and no Kenyan would be able to travel internationally without a valid EAC biometric e-passport.

However, responding to queries on the status of the old passports, Immigration Director-General Alexander Muteshi indicated the old passports will continue being in use.

“EAC changed the deadline for all EAC countries to November 2022,” Muteshi said in a message.

Kenya is rolling out the e-passport as part of the binding commitment by the EAC to move to the new biometric e-passport.

The decision to have the e-passport was arrived at during the 17th Ordinary Summit of the EAC Heads of State.

The issuance of the e-passport was to start by January 1, 2017, to phase out the current machine-readable East African and national passports from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2018.

When this failed — due to lack of preparedness — the 35th EAC Council of Ministers directed member states to start issuance of the e-passport by January 31, 2018.

According to the East African Community, the new passport is expected to boost the free movement of people across the region and it will be in line with the implementation of the Common Market Protocol, which guarantees the right to move freely between EAC member countries.

Article 9 of the protocol on travel documents provides that, “A citizen of a partner state who wishes to travel to another Partner State shall use a valid common standard travel document; 2. The partner states which have agreed to use machine‐readable and electronic national identity cards as travel documents may do so”.

The partner states that have agreed to use machine‐readable and electronic national identity cards shall work out modalities for the implementation of the aforementioned provision two.

Source: The Star

Kenyan tourism begins recovery from pandemic slump as locals fuel travel

(Reuters) – Kenya’s tourism industry has started to pull out of its deep COVID-19-induced slump as local travellers take advantage of lower prices, the government said on Wednesday, but foreign visitor numbers are still well below pre-pandemic levels.

The East African nation expects the sector, typically one of its top sources of foreign exchange, to earn 173 billion shillings ($1.5 billion) this year, up 18.5% from last year, the government said.

“The recovery seems to have begun,” George Gitonga, the acting chief executive of the state-run Tourism Research Institute, told Reuters after the figures were released.

Earnings slumped to 88.6 billion shillings in 2020, officials said, as governments around the world restricted the movement of people, including through the closure of air spaces, to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

They bounced back to 146 billion shillings last year, with the number of hotel nights occupied by Kenyan travellers doubling during the period, said Najib Balala, the tourism minister.

Local resorts, which normally concentrate their marketing efforts on foreign tourists, were forced to turn to the domestic market by the pandemic, offering cut rates to entice holidaymakers.

Foreign visitor numbers were still sharply lower than pre-pandemic levels, at just under 870,500 last year against 2 million in 2019. They are forecast to reach 1.03 million this year.

The drop in earnings in the sector from foreign tourists has contributed to a sharp drop in the local currency , which is trading at all-time lows against the dollar.

This year’s forecast for the sector’s performance depends on the continuation of the global campaign to vaccinate people against COVID-19, and sustained marketing into traditional source markets like Britain, and new ones in Asia, Gitonga said.

From safaris in the Maasai Mara and other wildlife reserves to holidays on Indian Ocean beaches, Kenya’s tourism industry contributes about 10% of economic output and employs over 2 million people.

The sector shed nearly 1.2 million jobs after the onset of the pandemic, the tourism ministry said, but it has started to claw back some of those losses on the back of the tentative recovery.

“Most of the jobs have come back from October 2021,” Balala said.

Source: Reuters

Everything will stay: 4.38 sq km Expo 2020 site to remain as a hub for new tech, innovation

Everything will stay: 4.38 sq km Expo 2020 site to remain as a hub for new tech, innovation

Expo 2020 is a symbol of human solidarity that connected 192 nations at a ‘difficult moment’, and the pandemic has taught everyone to be humble about the uncertainties of what still may come, Reem Al Hashimi, Expo’s Director General and UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation, has said.

Speaking to CNN’s Richard Quest on the ‘Quest Means Business’ programme, Al Hashimi said, “The pandemic hit everyone pretty strongly. When we had to delay for a year, I think it was an important moment for all of us. When I say us, I mean the international community but also the government of Dubai. How do we be responsible hosts? How do we bring the whole world together when you still in the middle of this?”

While Dubai relied on its agility, clarity of vision, science-based approach, the minister said there was also a realisation that nothing can be taken for granted.

“I think with Covid, one has to be really humble. You can’t get ahead of yourself. You need to keep following day by day, learning more and more about it, consulting with the experts and not taking anything for granted, not least the incredible experience this place offers.”

Al Hashimi, who is at the helm of the ‘world’s biggest show’ that opened its doors to the world on October 1, said Expo 2020 also reinforced that “through collaboration, through strong connections, through the sharing of best practice, of knowledge, of information can we actually overcome some of these global challenges.”

On visitor numbers

When asked whether there is a natural disappointment on the visitor numbers that “it will not be what it could have been,” the minister responded, “Actually No! No. No. I think, three months in the middle of this pandemic, to have nine million people come through… in a country that is only ten million residents and nationals strong. It is remarkable.”

“We are still gearing towards better targets, stronger targets and more meaningful experiences for people. But this is exciting and special for those who come through.”

Expo 2020 Dubai has seen over 9.5 million visits in the period to 11 January, with the virtual visits touching a staggering 60 million.

What next after Expo?

The 438-hectare sprawling Expo site – estimated to be the same size as 600 football fields – will remain as a hub for new tech and innovation, said the minister. Sandwiched between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Al Hashimi said the site is a “natural sister of both Dubai and Abu Dhabi”

“It is a very strongly tech-enabled, 5G tech incredible infrastructure. Everything that we built will stay. We have several country pavilions that will also stay. We have the conference and the exhibition over there. We have the Dubai metro coming all the way through. So, really a hub for new tech, a hub for innovation, and plans are already in place to roll this one out after 80 days when we close,” she said.

After March when curtains will fall on Expo, 80% of its built environment will be transformed into an integrated mixed-use community called District 2020.

Learning from Expo

The minister said the visitors who came from all over the world despite the pandemic gave her and her team “lot of strength.”

“They (visitors) are excited, they are exploring. They are having a great time and they are responsible. And I think that, we derived a lot of strength from them.”

Al Hashimi said she and her team also grew and understood more about themselves and the challenges of hosting a mega event. “I think we have all grown… all of us. I mean my team for sure. I am one of them. I think perspective… to really get a strong sense of perspective, of resilience. some of us can handle the pressure, some of us can’t. And that is not bad or good. That is the way our constitution is made up.”

During moments of difficulties, she said she picked herself up and relied on her team and on the country’s leadership “who have always been with us and their conviction in us.”

Building multilateralism

Al Hashimi said she has built “incredible relations” with countries that are at Expo, and she wants to visit some of them. “I will continue to grow and continue to bring value to us as Emiratis and as the UAE but also, to what multilateralism means and what international collaboration means,” she said.

With 80 more days to go, Al Hashimi said she won’t take anything for granted. “We are humble at the face of what may still come, and we honour every moment of having the privilege of being the host.”

At the end of March once the Expo is over what will she do? “I will take a nice break,” the minister said but quickly adding that she will come back to serve her nation, her government, and her family.

Source: Khaleej Times

How Cargo Is Keeping Ethiopian Airlines Profitable

Following the worst crisis commercial aviation has ever experienced, Ethiopian Airlines is now cash positive and profitable, its chief executive officer Tewolde Gebremariam said on Thursday. How it got there? Riding the updraft of a booming air freight market.

E-commerce and medical supplies

When physical stores closed down, people suffering from lockdown boredom took to online retail therapy. As entry restrictions erupted across the globe, regular supply chains were disrupted. As a result, the e-commerce business flourished, Jeff Bezos added a few more billions to his fortune, and airlines were thrown a lifeline in the form of soaring air cargo demand.

Passenger seats were quickly expelled from widebody aircraft in so-called ‘preighters’ to make space for more cargo – for some time nearly worth its weight in gold. Ethiopian Airlines was one of the first commercial carriers to turn to freight to generate revenue throughout COVID. It has succeeded in keeping the momentum going.

“For us, Ethiopian Airlines, the cargo business is strong and I would say is a breadwinner in the group,” Gebremariam said during a video link to a conference in Dubai, as reported by Reuters. “We are cash-positive. We are profitable,” he continued.

Strategic hub for pharma and goods

The crisis has seen the airline and Addis Ababa become an important hub for the transport of vaccines and other medical supplies onwards to the continent. Ethiopian Airlines also strengthened its position as Africa’s leading pharmaceutical carrier at the end of last year when it received the Center of Excellence for Independent Validators in Pharmaceutical Logistics (CEIV Pharma) certification.

The Ethiopian Airlines CEO further stated that his airline had made it through the pandemic this far with its own finances and without relying on any bailouts. It has even offered pay-rises and bonuses to airline staff. The carrier is now back to about 70% of pre-pandemic operations.

No signs of slowing down

The LoadStar is reporting that there is no expectation of air cargo demand – or rates – dropping any time soon. With passenger traffic again slowing down due to Omicron concerns, belly capacity is reducing, and airlines with dedicated cargo fleets stand to gain.

Ethiopian Airlines operates three permanently converted Boeing 737-800s and nine 777Fs. However, at the height of the crisis, it converted several Airbus A350s, Boeing 787 Dreamliners, 777s, 767s, and additional 737s in order to boost cargo capacity.

No passengers to Dubai since Christmas

Meanwhile, passenger airline traffic is still far from making a recovery, Gebremariam warned his fellow conference-goers. He criticized what he sees as fragmented approaches from governments, creating bottlenecks and slowing down recovery.

Dubai, the host of the event, currently has an entry and transit ban in place on those who have been in Ethiopia and 13 other African countries. As a result, Ethiopian Airlines has not flown passengers to Dubai since Christmas.

Source: Simple Flying

As Omicron Spreads, the CDC Tightens Its Health Advice on Travel

In its latest travel advisory issued Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) moved Canada to its highest risk level category, “Level 4: Very High COVID-19.”

With the new designation, most of the world’s countries as well as nearly every county in the U.S. are on the agency’s list of places to which Americans travelers should avoid non-essential trips. There are currently 81 countries and territories ranked as Level 4 by the CDC, with nearly all of Europe, Scandinavia, Canada, and the U.S. a deep shade of red (which indicates the highest level of transmission) on the organization’s world map tracking the virus.

“If you must travel to these destinations, make sure you are fully vaccinated before travel,” the CDC travel guidelines say.

A handful of countries, including Mexico and most countries in South America, are ranked in the CDC’s slightly less urgent category “Level 3: COVID-19 High.” 

While the majority of destinations are still allowing fully vaccinated travelers to visit if they follow certain testing protocols, many governments are discouraging tourists. Canada, for one, has been ramping up testing requirements for arriving visitors, and the nation’s government has also been discouraging its citizens from traveling abroad.

On the other end of the spectrum, Mexico’s borders remain open to travelers from both the U.S. and around the world with very few restrictions: Travelers aren’t currently required to show a negative test result to enter. Similarly, the U.K. recently relaxed its requirement for a pre-departure test for fully vaccinated travelers in favor of a test within two days of arrival.

But advice from health officials in the U.S. on what modes of travel are safe have slowly been growing more stringent in recent weeks. In late December, the CDC travel guidelines for cruise ships were upgraded to Level 4, and the top infectious disease doctor in the U.S. Dr. Anthony Fauci made a more vocal case for a vaccination requirement for domestic flights, saying in an interview with MSNBC that the measure is “something that should be seriously considered.”

Source: Conde Nest Traveller

How China’s Zero-COVID Goal Is Impacting The Aviation Industry

Inbound international flights to China are operating at a fraction of comparable 2020 numbers and don’t look like recovering any time soon. If anything, capacity may further tighten. Among many industries, the aviation industry is a casualty of China’s zero-COVID policy.

While most of the world wrestles with learning to live with COVID, China maintains a zero-COVID stance, attempting to crush the virus wherever it appears. Anyang, with a population of about five and a half million people, Xi’an, home to around 13 million people, and Yuzhou, where over one million people live, are all experiencing extremely tough lockdowns.

No Olympics financial sugar hit for the aviation industry

China closed its international borders to nearly all foreigners in March 2020, shutting down the inbound tourism and business markets. China has not relaxed that policy since. If anything, they’ve become tougher on who they award the few visas they grant to. That’s having a big impact on the aviation industry.

Beijing is set to host the Winter Olympics in February. Normally, the Olympics offers a guaranteed boost in passengers numbers for airlines flying into the host city. But Beijing is not inviting non-residents, which neutralizes any airline’s chances of a quick financial sugar rush from the games.

According to Bloomberg, across January 8 – 15, 2020, China welcomed around 10,000 international flights. This week, the country will see about 500 international flights land, and capacity cuts are intensifying.

Beijing penalizes airlines

China appears hell-bent on hosting the Olympics next month, and if that means tightening movement and travel restrictions to curb the threat of COVID, so be it. Airlines are being penalized for flying in passengers who later test positive to COVID.

Those penalties usually involve blocking a fixed number of future flights. As a result, this week, American Airlines confirmed it had axed six of its flights from Dallas-Fort Worth to Shanghai in late January and early February.

United Airlines has canceled six flights from San Francisco to Shanghai in late January, and Delta Air Lines had also canceled a couple of flights. Even the flights that do get to go ahead are limited to flying 75% of their maximum capacity.

“We don’t expect international travel to and from China to recover to 2019 levels for the next three quarters at least,” said John Grant, OAG’s chief analyst. Grant noted in the lead up to COVID-19, China had been one of the fastest-growing airline markets in the world.

It’s not just US carriers feeling the pinch. Four China Southern flights from Los Angeles to Guangzhou in early February are canceled. So far this year, more than 60 flights on the China-United States country pair have been canceled.

Normalization of flights to China a long way off

The big three US airlines and four Chinese carriers continue to maintain scaled-back flights between the two countries. And China’s heavy-handed approach extends beyond the United States. Multiple flights from France and Canada have been suspended this week.

Now under the control of Beijing, Hong Kong last week banned all flights from eight countries for two weeks. From this weekend, Hong Kong will also ban transit passengers from 150 countries for one month.

“The abrupt re-imposition of travel restrictions by many governments in the face of the rising spread of the omicron variant threatens to hold back the long-awaited revival of Asia’s travel and tourism industry,” said Subhas Menon, Director General of the Association of Asia-Pacific Airlines recently.

China is expected to issue special landing permits for participants and officials flying in for the Olympics before reverting to their current zero-COVID-related entry policies.

Source: Simple Flying

Unvaccinated passengers to be blocked at airports

Unvaccinated Kenyans coming back to the country will not be allowed in after the expiry of a seven-day window that the aviation regulator had issued amid talks with the Ministry of Health to extend inoculation exercise for these passengers at the airport.

The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority had from December 28 allowed Kenyans who do not have Covid-19 certificate to be admitted in the country but had to undergo mandatory vaccination at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).

KCAA director-general Gilbert Kibe says they are in discussion with the health officials to see if an extension on the vaccination exercise at the airport can be issued so that they would allow those without certificates to be inoculated at the port of entry.

“We are not allowing Kenyans without vaccination certificates at the moment but we are the waiting for Ministry of Health to update on the possibility of an extension,” Mr Kibe told the Business Daily.

KCAA had offered Kenyan travellers a sigh of relief in the last two weeks following a directive allowing them to fly without a vaccination certificate.

Previously, Kenya would not allow those without proof of vaccination entry and had issued a directive to the airlines not to board them.

KCAA required these individuals to register on the Chanjo platform and must have a negative Covid-19 certificate.

Source: Business Daily

Why Kenya is in perennial aviation tiff with UAE

Kenya has suspended all inbound and transit passenger flights from the United Arabs Emirates (UAE) to retaliate against Dubai’s move to ban all passenger flights from Kenya over fake Covid-19 tests.

In a statement, Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) said the suspension took effect Monday midnight for a period of seven days.

The ban does not, however, affect cargo flights that are normally flown by carriers such as Kenya Airways and Emirates airline from UEA into Kenya.

“Inbound and transit passenger flights from UAE are suspended for a period of seven days. We are doing this to reciprocate a ban on Kenyan passenger flights to UAE,” Director-General Gilbert Kibe said. 

The ban comes barely two weeks after UAE extended Kenya flight ban after it established that travelers from Nairobi were testing positive for Covid-19 after arrival in the Middle East nation, despite carrying negative test results.

On December 20, the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA) announced a 48-hour suspension on all flights from Kenya after several passengers arriving from Nairobi tested positive for Covid-19. 

However, the Arab League nation extended the ban that was to end on  Christmas eve

“Until further notice, flights to and from Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda are suspended,” DCAA said.

It asked passengers who have been in or transited through these countries in the last 14 days will not be allowed to enter or transit through Dubai,” said the notice from the airline.

“They banned flights from Kenya due to many false negative Covid-19 PCR results. The Ministry of Health is investigating and will report findings soon,” KCAA said. 

The aviation tiff between the two is likely to hurt Kenya’s growing labour export to the UAE, considering that majority were yet to travel back after Christmas festivities. 

Government data shows that there are at least 40,000 Kenyans working in UAE, with the figure rising by the day. 

Even so, this is not the first time Kenya and UAE are embroiled in an aviation war. 

In March, Kenya blocked UAE’s push to have more flight frequencies by the Emirates Airline.

This, despite Dubai writing to Nairobi not to fly any carrier with more than 220 passengers into its territory yet Emirates is using aircraft of more than 400 seat capacity into Nairobi.

This angered Kenya, with the Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia calling out the Arab nation for unfair air transport trade. 

According to him, Emirates was seeking an additional daily flight to Nairobi yet it does 14 weekly flights.

“When you add Etihad Airlines and Air Arabia, in total they have 28 weekly flight frequencies against Kenya Airways’ seven, an arrangement that is a skewed advantage in favour of airlines from the Gulf region,” Macharia said. 

The CS said Emirates Airlines, Etihad Airlines and Air Arabia—all designated to fly from the UAE—currently have a combined weekly seat capacity of 15,400 against Kenya Airways’ 5,510.

”Giving Emirates more flight capacity means they will get 90 per cent of business between Nairobi and Dubai while KQ receives 10 per cent. This is not tenable,” said CS Macharia.

He said Emirates Airlines benefits from substantial government subsidies and can sell out the seats in the Nairobi-Dubai route at throw-away prices due to the support.

More than a decade ago, Nairobi and Dubai were involved in a bitter diplomatic exchange after four members of the Dubai royal family were kicked out by immigration officials in Nairobi on suspicion that they were a terror gang.

Dubai retaliated by imposing restrictions requiring all Kenyans entering the UAE to present proof of higher education to obtain a visa.

The 2010 incident triggered fear of deportation among thousands of Kenyans working in the Gulf nation, prompting truce talks.

Even so, the two nations have enjoyed a cordial relationship, more so during President Uhuru Kenyatta’s tenure. 

In 2014, Uhuru travelled to UAE where he held talks with rulers from Jordan and UAE on expanding and deepening cooperation in areas of mutual interest between Kenya and the UAE.

The discussions were centered around issues of security, combating terrorism, and stemming out radicalization.

In 2018, UAE and Kenya signed a memorandum of understanding that aimed to promote cooperation in domestic employment.

The MoU, which is complemented by a cooperation agreement on domestic workers, was signed by Nasser bin Thani Al Hamli, Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation, and Ukur Yatani, then CS Labour and Social Protection.

Dubai said the MoU was the outcome of solid cooperation in employment and includes the regulation of the recruitment and employment of Kenyan labour and the work of the private recruitment agencies, with the aim of adopting transparent practices in all stages of the contractual work cycle.

In 2019, Kenya lobbied Dubai officials to support Kenyatta’s Big 4 Agenda and held talks over logistics, infrastructure, retail, tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, and finance. 

In February last year, Uhuru sent Interior CS Fred Matiang’i to Abu Dhabi for bilateral discussions on security sector collaboration between the UAE and Kenya.

Matiang’i and his host His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed also discussed the possible easing of VISA restrictions for Kenyans travelling to the UAE in the wake of the Covid- 19 pandemic.

Source: The Star

Delhi to challenge Canadian court order against Air India

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is taking legal recourse against a Canadian court order that allows the seizure of millions of dollars collected by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) on behalf of Air India (AI, Mumbai Int’l) and the Indian regulator, reports Indian Express.

This follows after the Superior Court of Quebec passed separate orders on November 24 and December 21 on multiple petitions filed by three Mauritius-based shareholders of India’s Devas Multimedia Private Limited to enforce arbitration awards against the Indian government.

This includes USD6.8 million in air service fees collected by IATA on behalf of the AAI and an as-yet-undisclosed amount in Air India ticket sales collected through IATA’s Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP).

“The AAI has not been served any order by the Quebec Court, Canada, in this matter. However, IATA shared certain documents on the AAI’s request for suspending the transfer of the amount collected on behalf of the AAI. The AAI is taking legal recourse to defend itself,” the regulator said in a statement.

The Devas shareholders involved are Devas (Mauritius) Ltd, Telcom Devas Mauritius Ltd, and Devas Employees Mauritius Pvt. Ltd. Air India removed its inventory from the Global Distribution System (GDS) following the December 21 court order.

The dispute dates back to a deal annulled in 2011 between Devas Multimedia and Antrix Corp, a state-owned Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) unit, by which Antrix Corp would have leased satellite transponders to Devas. Antrix Corp has initiated liquidation proceedings against Devas Multimedia pending before the Karnataka High Court in India.

Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court on January 4 dismissed an attempt to have the government’s disinvestment in Air India set aside. The appeal by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy was based on the allegation that the government’s methodology in the valuation of the national carrier was “arbitrary, illegal, and against the public interest,” reported The Economic Times. Swamy is an economist and statistician who serves as a Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament.

This comes ahead of the Tata Group’s 100% takeover of Air India and Air India Express (IX, Mumbai Int’l) following its successful bid announced in October last year, representing the first privatisation in the country in 20 years. The Tata Group also takes over 50% of ground handler Air India SATS in a joint venture with the government, which retains 50%. The Tata Group has been granted indemnity from USD4.7 billion worth of Air India debt in its shareholder agreement with the government.

According to the share purchase agreement signed on October 25, the government has sold Air India for INR180 billion (USD2.4 billion), of which the Tata Group will pay INR27 billion (USD362.6 million) in cash and INR153 billion (USD2 billion) for Air India’s existing debt.

Lenders to Air India have reportedly offered Tata a loan of INR350 billion (USD4.6 billion) for a weighted average dividend of 4.25% – the rate at which the state is lending for one year, reports Hindi publication Zaroorat. Tata had invited bids from the airline’s existing lenders for a one-year general loan of INR230 billion (USD3 billion). This would include INR180 billion (USD2.4 billion) to repay the carrier’s debt and an additional INR50 billion (USD671 million) for initial operating costs.

Tata will notify each lender of the allotment in the first week of January and draw the sanctioned limit between January 10 and 15, 2022, the report said. The takeover and refinance of Air India’s debt was due to be completed before January 23, the long-stop date for closing the Air India agreement with the government. However, regulatory processes appear to have delayed the deadline, now extended by mutual consent to the end of January, reports the Hindu newspaper Jagran.

By August 31, 2021, Air India had a total debt of INR615.62 billion (USD8.2 billion); 75% of this debt will be transferred to Air India Assets Holding Limited (AIAHL), a special purpose vehicle, before the airline is handed over to the Tata Group.

According to company information, in 2020/21, the combined revenue of Tata companies was USD103 billion.

Source: Ch-Aviation

Inside Travelport’s Tech Revamp

Travelport has been running a slick marketing campaign about its innovations that showcases dancers and snowboarders. But we wanted the nerdy details about what’s technologically changing. So here’s the first in-depth interview with the company’s new tech chief.

Travelport is best known for helping travel agencies sell airline tickets. It joins rivals Amadeus and Sabre in processing nearly half the world’s air bookings.

In 2019, Travelport went private. Since then, owners private equity firm Siris Capital and a unit of Elliott Management have been making changes. Turnaround artist and CEO Greg Webb has been overhauling operations.

In June 2021, Webb appointed Tom Kershaw chief product and technology officer. Kershaw is leading an effort to reinvigorate the company‘s technology.

I checked in with Kershaw for an update.

“(This year) is going to be a watershed year for Travelport,” Kershaw said.

For years, the UK-based travel technology company has run three global distribution systems — Worldspan, Galileo, and Apollo.

It now aspires to run on one platform, Travelport+, with Galileo as the main framework. I’ve heard a rumor of an October 1 goal.

But Kershaw said he hasn’t decided on a “sunset date” for Worldspan and Apollo.

“Our goal is not necessarily about consolidating,” Kershaw clarified. “It’s about leapfrogging to the next generation of technologies across the board for our customers, leapfrogging from a legacy model to an internet shopping model.”

“There are some components of the systems that will be available throughout 2022 for sure,” Kershaw said. “But the goal is to get a vast majority of customers on Travelport+ in the coming quarters.”

One challenge facing Travelport is with the reservation software it offers travel agents. The agents differ on the kind of software they prefer.

Many veteran agents prefer using a classic industry user interface, nicknamed the “green screen.” The agents book trips and service bookings by using specific, command-based keystrokes.

Newer agents, by contrast, typically want software that looks like consumer applications from Apple or Amazon, which use “graphical user interfaces.”

Travel agencies need to appeal to veterans and newbies alike. So Kershaw intends to appeal to both tastes with a hybrid approach.

“We want a completely cloud-based, front-end user interface for travel agents,” Kershaw said. “It will allow us to coexist in a terminal world and a graphical user interface world and jump back seamlessly between the two.”

I was too polite in the call to mention that I heard this exact same pitch in 2012 when I visited Travelport’s headquarters in Langley, UK. I sat through a demonstration of its then-latest-system Smartpoint. The system back then promised a similarly effortless toggling between interfaces. Of course, the company may get it right this time.

The company is also adopting a broader array of ways of exchanging and analyzing data.

Kershaw believes Travelport can differentiate itself in a few ways.

It is adopting technologies and processes to make it easier and more cost-efficient for agencies to handle complexity.

“We’re developing strong automation capabilities for things like exchanging tickets and issuing refunds,” Kershaw said.

One of the striking aspects of the new Travelport is its focus on simplification and its related decision to double down on its core business of distribution.

The previous management’s theme had been to diversify Travelport’s business. The thinking was to make the company less dependent on its core airline distribution business. Some equities analysts believe that distrbution, while a cash cow, is in terminal decline.

The company’s current financial sponsors have been instead slimming down Travelport’s portfolio, such as by jettisoning the group’s stake in payments unit eNett, and investing more in the distribution core.

For instance, the previous management bought Mobile Travel Technologies in 2015. It morphed the vendor into an outsourced development shop for airlines, such as when EasyJet needed help in designing mobile apps.

Kershaw said Travelport would “continue to support specific products in specific markets.” But that group is now primarily working on re-building Travelport’s portal to let customers self-service their accounts where appropriate.

“We’re trying to bring all parts of the company under the same umbrella as part of our broader move to standardize as much as possible,” Kershaw said. “We want to reduce having customization all over the place — while still allowing for regional and customer-specific solutions.”

“That group is really charged with building out self-service tools for agencies who need to make changes to accounts at all times of the day,” Kershaw said.

Kershaw has a few principles that animate his plans for Travelport. “Less is more” is one of the them.

A case in point: Like its peer companies, Travelport must cope with a fast growing array of airline products, such as the bundling of seats with ancillary services like free checked luggage.

“In travel, we have this explosion of options, and every airline has a different view of how they want to approach this,” Kershaw said. “We in the travel industry need to use machine learning to help pick the correct, relevant bundle for any given user.”

Travelport does face rising upstarts as fresh competitors, including Duffel on the distribution front and Aeronology in the agency ticket servicing front. But the company has said it has been making strides, especially versus its traditional peers such as Sabre.

“We’re very happy with the feedback we’re getting from customers about how we’re onboarding new content quickly and effectively,” Kershaw said.

Kershaw believes that the airline sector could do a better job with standardization in distribution and selling.

The New Distribution Capability, or NDC, is a shorthand for an airline effort to attempt to standardize how airline content is distributed and displayed to agencies and end-users.

“I don’t think the industry has done a good enough job with standardization,” Kershaw said. “There’s too much customization and variation, with everyone interpreting the standards in different ways, which is holding back the industry’s velocity in adopting modern retailing.”

Kershaw has experience with this issue. He founded Prebid as an open-source, unified auction for programmatic advertising.

“The travel industry could learn more from how other verticals have approached standardization,” Kershaw said. “I’m not saying that travel’s terrible at this. But I think we can do a better job cooperating and developing standards faster.“

To give some context, a decade ago, independent advertising technology platforms were stabbing each other in the eyeballs over technical application issues while Google took market share from everyone. About a half-dozen years ago, Google became the only real choice for publishers to monetize with ads.

Kershaw blamed the problem on a lack of standardization from design and technical perspectives. He helped create Prebid on the theory that publishers needed a competitive option to Google’s auctions.

In a key point for engineering nerds, Kershaw doesn’t believe Travelport’s goal should be to universally adopt a particular class of API, or application programming interface.

Travelport embraced the use of APIs years ago because they enable much better capabilities for sales and data analytics. But APIs come in different flavors.

“I don’t want to leave the impression that the endgame is all about moving everything from quote-unquote ‘legacy APIs’ like SOAP to Rest APIs like JSON [JavaScript Object Notation, or probably the most widely used data format for data interchange in ecommerce],” Kershaw said.

“The plan isn’t to port everything to JSON and then pop Champagne,” Kershaw said. “Our intermediate-term goal is instead to get everything on a single well-documented family of APIs. We also want those APIs to be easy to consume, meaning friendly for developers to use for executing agency workflows.”

Cynics might wonder if Kershaw has adopted that position because Travelport doesn’t have the resources for a full shift.

After all, Travelport hasn’t generated as much cash as its financial sponsors expected it would have by now because of a botched sale of its stake in payments firm eNett.

Regarding eNett selling for only $577.5 million instead of $1.7 billion or more, a Travelport spokesperson responded: “We (leadership and owners) reached an agreement that, all things considered, was right for all parties. The close of the transaction allowed us to focus on our core business and invest further in Travelport.”

I didn’t ask Kershaw about resources. But he volunteered that practicalities dictate his company’s technology policy. Travelport has an array of functions that need a breadth of APIs, Kershaw said.

For example, its search function for airfare content demands APIs that can handle a huge amount of data volumes. That might require one type of API. But the company’s other tasks, such as letting an agent check a passenger name record or void a transaction, happen with less frequency — yet require a lot of customization for agency-specific workflows. So those tasks might need other types of APIs, Kershaw said.

“APIs are a journey, not a destination,” Kershaw said. “The evolution is ongoing, with people talking already about GraphQL and other newer technologies.”

A mistake Kershaw is trying to avoid is being one of those companies that’s in a rush to roll out “features, features, features.”

Kershaw said some organizations at companies outside and inside travel overlook how developers need support to help maintain data feeds at a high standard of performance.

“Non-experts tend to think about APIs as either they work or don’t work,” Kershaw said. “But if an API degrades over time, there can be subtle hits to performance that have negative impacts for travel agents. So it’s critical that speed and synchronization are in your design from the beginning.”

“That’s why we’re focused on ‘provisioning,’ or having a unified, alarming and monitoring capability for developers,” Kershaw said.

Some industry experts will agree that a focus on building “features, features, features” without a focus on support and maintenance can lead to problems down the line.

In one rumored example, I’ve been hearing scattered complaints recently about technology Accelya acquired from a vendor formerly called Farelogix. Some developers are nicknaming it “Failogix,” claiming they see increasing glitches — though Accelya hasn’t heard this and reports high retention rates and sales.

Hiring top developers is critical for Travelport to stay ahead.

“The travel sector faces an explosion of options coming into the ecosystem and a growing demand for smoother travel experiences,” Kershaw said.

“These are the kinds of challenges that excite the best engineeers,” Kershaw said. “Think about how people used to book taxis and short-term rentals and then Uber and Airbnb came along. Air travel and hotel booking are the next sectors that will experience this revolution of next-gen internet shopping.”

Kershaw, based in California, has been getting to know the company’s developers in Denver and Atlanta.

To help further associate its name with innovation, Travelport ran a contest with AWS (Amazon Web Services) to give prizes for the most interesting travel startups, picking two winners late last year.

Source: Skift