Ethiopian Airlines Adds New Channel for Selling Flights Worldwide

Ethiopian Airlines has added a new channel for selling its flights worldwide through a partnership with travel technology company AirGateway, giving travel agencies access to the airline’s fares and additional services through its booking platform.

The integration allows travel agencies, corporate travel managers and ticket consolidators to search, book and manage Ethiopian Airlines flights through AirGateway’s BookingPad platform, application programming interface (API) and partner booking tools.

The system supports bookings with tickets issued immediately or held for later ticketing, cash and credit card payments, seat selection, additional services, refunds and rebookings. Travel sellers can manage these transactions within their existing booking workflows, according to the companies.

Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest airline group, operates more than 145 destinations across five continents from its hub in Addis Ababa. The partnership gives the airline another distribution channel through which travel sellers can access its flight offers and related services.

Meaza Taye, distribution and global corporate sales director at Ethiopian Airlines Group, said expanding the airline’s digital capabilities was a strategic priority.

“Integrating AirGateway with our NDC system is an important part of this ongoing effort,” she said, adding that AirGateway’s connections with travel agencies and booking platforms would help the airline serve customers more conveniently.

Jorge Díaz, chief executive of AirGateway, said the agreement would strengthen the company’s position in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, its main operating region. He said its partners would be able to sell and manage Ethiopian Airlines’ offers through their existing booking systems.

The partnership uses New Distribution Capability (NDC), an industry standard developed by the International Air Transport Association to help airlines distribute fares and additional services through modern booking systems.

Source: FSX Business News