Small can be beautiful!

Smaller airlines often believe their ability to negotiate competitive GDS distribution agreements is limited. 

In reality, their bargaining power is quite significant, because their BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) is usually not much worse than the negotiated deal they already have. 

This is because for small airlines, the relative increase in GDS booking fees when moving from a (Full) content agreement to a baseline GDS parity agreement with the likes of Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport, can be a fraction of the increase a larger airline would face. This is simply negotiating leverage turned on its head: larger airlines tend to get significantly larger booking fee discounts than small carriers for additional content commitments, which prevent preferencing of the airlines' website and non-GDS NDC connections to travel sellers.

So somewhat paradoxically, the price of distribution freedom tends to be considerably lower for smaller airlines, than for larger ones.

If you are responsible for distribution at a smaller airline, please think twice about simply extending your content agreements and consider talking to one of our strategy and negotiation experts to help you evaluate your options.