SOUTHLAKE, Texas, 3 January 2020: Air India has withdrawn all of its flight and fare content from Sabre’s global distribution system according to a Sabre statement.
Attributed to Sabre vice president global communications, Kristin Hays, the statement reads: “After a successful 20-year relationship, Air India has decided to discontinue distributing its content through the Sabre GDS. Consequently, Air India content is no longer available to Sabre-connected travel agencies, effective today (2 January).
“We are very disappointed that Air India decided to withdraw from Sabre,” the statement concluded.
Sabre and Air India had engaged in discussions for close to a year to reach a new agreement, ahead of the existing contract’s expiry date and after receiving a termination notice from the carrier. Negotiations failed to reach an agreement.
Meanwhile, Simple Flying a popular aviation news blog in a 1 January report asked the question “Can Air India survive 2020”? It claimed the Indian Government that owns the airline is now threatening to close the airline if a buyer is not found by June 2020.
“We’ve been keeping an eye on Air India here at Simple Flying. Just before Christmas, I wrote about how the airline received yet another USD73.7 million guarantee from the Indian Government whilst debt in excess of USD$8.5 billion was been shifted off the airline’s books,” the website blogger reported
In December, the airline stopped issuing airline tickets on credit to most Indian government agencies claiming it was not being reimbursed to the tune of USD37.6 million. But Simple Flying said that was a “drop in the ocean” when compared to the airline’s overall losses.
(Source: Sabre, Simple Flying)
