SkyLink Canada hosted more than 150 travel agents in Vancouver on Thursday to showcase their travel partners and to unveil the next phase of TripPro, its innovative booking air travel booking system that consolidates content from all three GDS' (Sabre, Amadeus and Apollo) GDS systems.
Scheduled to launch in May, TripPro's next phase will feature Invoice Master, allowing agents to view the invoice, their commissions and required payments at the time they issue airline tickets. Agency owners can see agency statements a week at a time, that outline the volume of the week's business with SkyLink Canada, commissions earned and payments due.
"We want to give them all the self-servicing tools, so they can focus on sales and leave the [administration] work with us," said Sandeep Mamgain, Director Sales, SkyLink Canada.
"Nowadays, people are waiting until the last minute," he continued. With TripPro he notes, agents can see the published fares, net fares and commissionable fares and calculate the appropriate mark-ups. "They can issue the ticket immediately, get the invoice immediately, and get done with the sale."
Future developments include loading global content into the system so clients in Canada can purchase tickets for family overseas using local content. "Navigating national rules, currency and time zones is a challenge for SkyLink's IT team," says Mamgain, "but it's worth it. Somebody's here and they want to pay [for] the tickets here. On those tickets, we want to give some kind profit to the travel agents who are making the time and effort. They should get rewarded."
The global content is tentatively scheduled for a third-quarter launch.
SkyLink Canada, along with its sister companies in the Mondee group, are the Number 1 air consolidator in North America, with $2 billion in combined sales in 2016.
Select partners were also invited to the stage to share some highlights:
The joint venture between Delta, Alitalia, KLM and Air France, boasts 77 weekly Transatlantic flights out of Canada, including 12 from Vancouver; and seven from Calgary, and four from Edmonton. Delta flies to the U.S. 11 times daily from Vancouver, seven times a day from Calgary, and four times daily from Edmonton. Both Air France and KLM codeshare with WestJet.
WestJet is increasing services out of Vancouver this summer with six flights a day from Vancouver to Kelowna, five per day to Prince George, twice daily to Montreal, and twice daily to San Francisco. From Abbotsford, the airline is adding a daily flight to Winnipeg. Service to Gatwick returns this year, flying from Vancouver six times a week; five times a week from Calgary, twice a week from Edmonton and once from Winnipeg.
Etihad presented their free stopover offer in Abu Dhabi. The Premium Stopover offers two free nights to First Class Guests and one free night to Business Class guests, at one of seven high-end properties in Abu Dhabi and one in Dubai, including breakfast, and can be combined with a 2-for-1 excursion offer. Aimed at Economy passengers, the 2-for-1 offer features 2-for-1 tickets on a selection of 10 excursions and attractions in Abu Dhabi. The airline's trade incentive program offers miles earned on every ticket sold that can be redeemed for flights and accommodation or converted into cash with PointsPay.
AeroMexico offers two daily non-stop flights between Vancouver and Mexico City; departing Vancouver at 7:30 AM and arriving at 2:40 PM, and departing at 11:27 PM, arriving in Mexico City at 7:05 AM the following morning. Return flights depart Mexico City at 1:35 AM, and arrive in Vancouver at 5:33 AM, or depart at 6:10 PM and arriving at 11:02 PM. Starting June 1, 2017, AeroMexico will operating a daily non-stop between Calgary and Mexico City, departing Calgary at 11:50 PM and arriving at 6:25 AM the next day, while on the return, the flight leaves Mexico City at 6:00 PM, touching down in Calgary at 11:30 PM. AeroMexico codeshares with WestJet.
Air Canada is launching new routes out of the west, flying to Nagoya up to four times per week aboard Air Canada Rouge as of June 1; and daily to Tai Pei with Air Canada beginning June 8. AC is also offering four weekly seasonal flights to Reykjavik from Toronto starting June 21 and three weekly seasonal flights from Montreal as of June 23, both aboard Air Canada Rouge.
From Vancouver, the Lufthansa Group (Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian and Brussels Airlines) flies year-round to Frankfurt and seasonally to Munich on board Lufthansa, and seasonally to Zurich with SWISS (operated by Edelweiss). From Calgary, SWISS offers seasonal service to Zurich (operated by Edelweiss).
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