Is Modern Airline Retailing (MAR) a real possibility or a fata morgana?

Last week's CEO skirmish between Sabre and Amadeus about dominance and monopolists has shed a spotlight on MAR modularity. 

Airlines claim to want and need it. IT providers claim to offer it. Why then have so many high profile OOSD decisions by established airlines begun with the predictable outcome of at least anchoring their future OOSD architecture around their PSS incumbent, putting them in the pole position for additional pieces of the MAR pie?

Here are some of the likely reasons:

1. It's true, any airline's PSS incumbent has little to no commercial interest to have other IT providers nibble away at their largely monolithic PSS gatekeeper fortress. This is where Sabre's claim rings true and might be missing the point at the same time: Amadeus will predictably do everything legal in its power to migrate its Altéa customers to as much of Nevio as possible. So far, so professional on the part of Amadeus. The reason this is problematic for Sabre is quite simply that Amadeus' PSS Altéa has a much larger customer base than Sabre's PSS SabreSonic. Of course, the story would change if Sabre could prove that Amadeus is market dominant and has sought to abuse this position.

   
   

2. The second reason MAR modularity hasn't taken off, rests largely with the airlines. If there is an operational issue in a truly modular MAR setup, whom would airlines call to get the issue resolved and how could airlines avoid falling into a cascade of finger pointing? Airlines are notoriously risk averse for many good reasons, and this risk aversity will continue to be a major hurdle for lived modularity. One way to overcome this would be for a group (or groups) of IT providers other than Amadeus to form a modular, but consistent combined service offering with true risk sharing and a single point of contact for airlines. This type of approach, loosely copied from the risk sharing groups commonly seen in the development of aircraft engines will surely have a better chance than today's ad hoc combinations of providers, selected - or more precisely: not selected by airlines.