BTI and easyJet sign access deal

BTI and easyJet have signed a deal giving the TMCTravel Management Company: An agency which manages business travel for a company.'s corporate clients access to the low cost carrier's fares.
EasyJet said it expected the deal which will allow BTI access to the airline's booking inventory and “certain back office systems” will give it a bigger share of the “lucrative corporate market.”

The agreement which will come into force later this year is the first of its kind between a UK TMC and a low cost airline. But easyJet said it hoped to sign similar deals with other TMCs.

Under the deal, BTI will display easyJet's inventory to its corporate customers along with that of other airlines.

Besides booking seats, the system will also provide travel buyers with billing, MI and notification of any flight disruptions.

Announcing the deal, easyJet director Chris Walton said: “The deal with BTI is all about making life easier for our customers - and that should be good for our business.

“We have long argued that easyJet is ideal for business passengers who value our great fares on high-frequency routes to Europe's major airports.

“But some companies have been held back by the inability of their systems to talk to ours. The deal with BTI will remove that barrier.”

Mike Platt, managing director of BTI UK, said that the problem of booking with easyJet was the high cost because it was outside the GDS system. “They have taken costs out of their process and added them to other people's.

“So we have sat down and looked at how we can link our systems to make it easier to make an easyJet booking and to take the hidden costs out of a low cost booking,” he said.

“This partnership approach tackles the issues associated with current ‘no frills' airlines' reservation systems – having to access a separate system, the need to use a credit card for payment, not seeing taxes and charges upfront and the time it takes to make a booking – for mutual benefit.”