Case Study: Southwest Airlines achieves full GDS participation and better business travel servicing with Travelport

Southwest Airlines becomes a full GDS participant with Travelport in one year

The customer, Southwest Airlines, faced a challenge in its distribution strategy, as its focus on direct bookings created inefficiencies for travel agencies. This limited access and the need for agents to call for modifications degraded trust and prevented the airline from reaching its full booking potential, particularly with business travelers. To address this, Southwest partnered with vendor Travelport to become a full GDS participant.

Travelport implemented a solution that made Southwest a full participant in its GDS, providing agencies with complete access to fare families and ticket management within a single workflow. This significantly reduced the need for manual intervention and created a more efficient, cost-focused channel. The results were lauded by Southwest's executive team as potentially one of its best enterprise technical releases ever, enabling the airline to better service existing customers and gain access to new high-yield customers.

Southwest Airlines