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Travel Technology

PASS Consulting broadens relationship with BCD Travel ( Source: pass-consulting-travel.blogspot.com )
PASS Consulting and BCD Travel announced a broadened relationship that expands BCD Travel’s capability to offer speech-recognition services, route calls to agents with specialized skills and offer other services that lower costs and boost efficiency for corporate travel programs. Under the agreement, BCD Travel is using the PASS XX/1 Multi-GDS Hub as a supplier gateway for its transactional platform, called the Source Platform.

GetThere launches collaboration suite ( Source: abtn.co.uk )
GetThere has unveiled its Collaboration Suite which it says will maximize return on investment from both travel and virtual meetings. The product collection is the first of a set of new solutions designed to help travel buyers manage trips and other types of collaboration such as web, audio and video conferencing. The company quoted a poll of UK corporate travel managers which claimed new collaboration tools could cut travel by as much as 18% over the next decade.

Airlines

American, BA warned by EU over proposed tie-up (Source: finance.yahoo.com)
American Airlines and fellow Oneworld alliance partners British Airways and Iberia face fresh European Union antitrust hurdles as they look to extend their pact to include coordinated schedules and prices. The airlines had planned to deepen the pact to take advantage of the U.S/EU "Open Skies" agreement, but European Union regulators said the latest plan may violate antitrust rules.

Bag fees creep onto overseas flights ( Source: usatoday.com )
Fees to check bags on international flights are creeping in and may be here to stay. In the past three months, all the big U.S. carriers have added $50 fees to check a second bag on flights to Europe. Delta and Continental are charging second-bag fees for flights to Latin America, too.

Airports

SITA survey finds 20% growth in passenger self-service check-in (Source: airport-technology.com)
SITA, the specialist provider of IT solutions to airlines and airports, today said that a major survey of passenger habits at six leading airport hubs across five continents has found 20% growth in adoption of self-service check-in options over the last year and that passengers are demanding improvements in security procedures and airport dwell times as they check-in less baggage.

Hotels

Weak August for European hotels ( Source: abtn.co.uk )
Chain hotels across Europe suffered a drop in revenues in August year-on-year, the latest HotStats survey from TRI Hospitality Consulting has shown.

Security

‘Clear’ security service may return at airports ( Source: nytimes.com )
Verified Identity Pass offered travelers a tempting proposition: pay up to $199 a year, submit to a fingerprint and iris scan, and skip to the front of interminable airport security lines. But last June, the company left its paying customers stranded, saying that it was ceasing operations and did not have cash to offer refunds. Now it appears those customers will get a break. A new investment group, Henry Inc., signed a letter of intent with Morgan Stanley, the defunct company’s largest debt holder, to buy its assets and reopen its fast-lane security service, called Clear.