AIRFARES AND RESERVATION SYSTEM (HTT 340)

GROUP ASSIGNMENT 2 (REPORT)

PREPARED BY:

COURSE PROGRAMME: HM111

GROUP: MHM1114D

PREPARED FOR:
NOOR IBTISAM ABDUL KARIM

SUBMISSION DATE:
18TH JUNE 2021
 TABLE CONTENT

NO TITLE PAGE
1 Introduction of Global Pandemic and it’s general effect 1-3

2 The effect of COVID-19 pandemic to GDS providers worldwide 4-5

3 Suggested recovery strategies for Airline industry 6-7

4 Conclusion 8

5 References 9
 1. INTRODUCTION OF GLOBAL PANDEMIC AND IT’S GENERAL EFFECT

The world recently is introduced to a deadly and highly contagious virus

which is Covid-19. The origin of this virus called Covid-19 is from the city of Wuhan,
Hubei province in China and it happened to be from bats or another closely-related
mammal. Hence, The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the
Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) is a pandemic which could threatened anyone
anytime so therefore, high cautions should be taken in order to keep everyone safe. To
halt the virus's transmission, a global synchronized effort is required as it is fatally
dangerous if the virus is not prevented, the whole world economically and globally
will collapse to nothing. The current situation which is these days is worst enough
compared to how it used to be without Covid-19. Some people are too frightened with
the idea of doing daily activities outside as this virus cannot be seen. The next thing
we know is that we have caught the symptoms and without proper care, everything
will go downhill. Also, there are people who completely contradicted to those who
take this matter very heavily and these people are the ones who further spread the
virus. This is what it meant when some people know they are infected and they are
diagnosed positive Covid-19 after the swab test but they still refuse to stay at home
and self-quarantine because of their own selfishness. A pandemic is explained as “An
epidemic that spreads over a large geographic region and affects a disproportionately
large proportion of the population “. From here, we could comprehend clearly that a
pandemic spread throughout the population is not something that could be taken
lightly as it brings death without prevention. People all around the world are advised
to take care of their hygiene very carefully and always wear a mask wherever they go.
These days people are encouraged to use double mask which is to wear a disposable
mask underneath and pair it with a cloth mask on top to get that fuller yet more safe
protection. Other than that, we are advised to always stay at home and only go out if it
is necessary. We also have to keep our distance 6 feet away from each other in order
to do social distancing in public. Most importantly, we have to always wash our hands
by using the correct method and use sanitizer frequently. Also, do not touch possible
contaminated surface with our bare hands, instead we have to regularly put gloves on.

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 As the world is becoming very ill these days and filled with infected people
from Covid-19, the economy all around the world is collapsing too. So many sectors
are decreasing in revenues and many of them are taking steps to downsize the number
of subordinates and lessen the working time. Note to mind, that vaccines are provided
for each country all around the world but it surely takes time for everyone completely
have 2 doses. However, does not necessarily mean everyone will be completely
immune to the virus once they have 2 doses of vaccines. By taking vaccine, we are
preventing the Covid-19 to rampant its way easily. When talking about this pandemic,
all of us realized that it causes so many general effects, be it on human or the
economy itself; both are very heavily on the verge of difficulty. One of the most
undoubtedly effected places is hospitals. We are talking about the spaces and beds in
hospitals which in some of the heavily effected countries, they do not have enough of
those to place the infected patients of Covid-19. It really brought awareness to the
eyes of the world that this particular virus should not be taken as a joke. Some of the
countries that do not have enough spaces and beds have to place those infected
outsides of the hospitals on the opened-space which to the sake of mind is very highly
dangerous. Other than that, doctors and nurses are slowly growing tired and they only
have little to no time to rest at all as they have to stay focus and treating the infected
people. Many doctors and nurses died during the process as they are too, infected
while doing their job. It is really saddening to see their genuine intention of work
being the reason of their death. Furthermore, the sectors such as flights and aviation
are also do not enjoy this fatal virus which is Covid-19. As we already know many of
the aviation companies are downsizing their subordinates which results to many of
them lose their jobs and ended up making them to find their own alternatives to
survive and to find income on their own. All of these aviation companies are doing
this out of the concern of them not having enough money to pay their subordinates as
many of the flights are on the dead end of not flown for a long time.

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 Moreover, the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a massive death of civilians
throughout the world, presenting an unprecedented challenge to healthcare system,
food production, and the economy. The pandemic seems to have a severe economic
and societal consequence. Tens of millions of people are on the verge of descending
under severe poverty, and the number of undernourished people, which has now been
approximated at about 690 million, might rise by up to 132 million by the end of the
year. Large numbers of businesses are in jeopardy of going bankrupt. Roughly half of
the world's 3.3 billion labourer will be at serious jeopardy of losing their jobs. Aside
of that, workers in the informal economy are extremely harmful as they have little
to no social security and adequate health care at all, as well as losing entrance to
essential assets. Numerous people will be unable to feed themselves and their family
during lockdowns as they lack the capacity to make money. Like most people, no
money equals to no food, or at the very least, fewer food results to less nutritional.
Right now, is the time for social justice and solidarity, especially for the most
vulnerable members of our communities, particularly in the growing and evolving
globe to support one another. Only by working together can we combat the
pandemic's interwoven ignorance, social, and economic consequences and prevent it
from escalating into a chronic catastrophic and social stability disaster which
could potentially wipe out previously gained developing achievements.

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 2. THE EFFECT OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC TO GDS PROVIDERS
WORLDWIDE

A global distribution system (GDS) is a computerized booking network that

acts as a central point of responsibility for travel agencies and allows for real-time
transactions amongst travel industry service providers. Specifically, online booking
companies and large businesses to accommodate airplane tickets, hotel rooms, car
rentals, and other travel items. In other words, GDS are important tools in the travel
industry because they facilitate automated transactions between third parties and
booking agents, allowing them to provide travel-related services to end users. Despite
of that, while COVID-19 is actively influencing the world, the tourism sector is
definitely among the most badly impacted, with many workers in this field being laid
off.

These are the effects on GDS providers worldwide when Covid 19 occurred.
Firstly, GDS will lead to a downturn in demand from the hospitality industry. This is
because the COVID-19 cases have increased dramatically since the pandemic started
and it has resulted in the hospitality industry as well as other accommodation having
to be temporarily closed as a precaution. In fact, the government issued an early
warning to people not to travel where they wanted any longer, so that COVID-19
cases could be avoided and gradually reduced. As a result, GDS providers will also
suffer huge losses as many people cannot book flight tickets, accommodation and so
on.

Secondly, many countries refuse to allow flights from high-risk countries to

enter, as evidenced by booking volumes falling by double digits across the board and
the fact that in the distribution of aviation companies declined by 77.9 percent,
resulting in a 77.1 percent revenue contraction for the full year. This has been
attributed to a drop-in booking numbers beginning in February as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, Amadeus' travel agency air bookings dropped by
79.4 percent in the fourth quarter since the government is closing the border and no
one is permitted to enter or exit their place of origin.

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 Apart from that, another effect of pandemic to GDS is that the decreasing in
revenue globally and economically. The sequence of events that has occurred as a
result of COVID-19 is absolutely unprecedented. In just over two months, the
industry's opportunities in most of the globe worldwide have deteriorated
dramatically. It is uncertain how the pandemic will grow and develop, but whether the
damage is limited to a few areas which caused a $63 billion revenue loss, or a larger
impact that results in a $113 billion revenue loss, this is definitely a catastrophe. In
addition, many airlines are restricting capacity and implementing cost-cutting
initiatives in order to save money. Governments must pay attention. Airlines are doing
everything they can to stay in business while performing the critical role of
connecting the world's economy. Although governments contemplate economic
reforms, the aviation sector may require attention regarding tax, fee, and channel
estimation relief. “These are extraordinary times,” IATA Director General and CEO
Alexandre de Juniac remarked.

Next, the GDS providers need to decide to scale back their operations to cut
flights and also to remove the less economical aircraft that wanted to be operated.
This is because, the pandemic is blocking people from travelling and moving from
one country to another. It is causing limitation of flight that need to be operated
during the pandemic. Due to this issue, the GDS providers are facing a huge loss
when they need to limit the aircraft operation when the amount of aircraft passenger is
decreasing.

In the nutshell, many sectors are affected during this pandemic and GDS is
one of it. People all around the world are advised to stay at home and social
distancing in the term of safety in order not to spread the virus any further. As we
already aware of, Covid-19 does not know age or gender. It has infected many people
since the virus emerged and it is not to be taken lightly as that is such an inconsiderate
action.

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 3. SUGGESTED RECOVERY STRATEGIES FOR AIRLINE INDUSTRY

Every day, the world will bring news of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, there
was larger geographic areas severely affected and more cities and even countries had
been shut down. The airline industry has commonly become among the most heavily
impacted by chronic health events, and this year is no exception. There might have
hope that the virus could be contained quickly, limiting its impact. Unfortunately, as
COVID-19 cases continue to rise and spread all over the world, it is now unclear how
widely it can spread and how long this crisis will last. As a result, airlines around the
world are being expected to reduce capacity and ground their fleets for an unknown
period of time.

While airlines industry becomes one of the industries who effected by

COVID-19, there are few of recovery strategies for airline industry that can be done
so that aviation industry can still sustain the economy remains stable despite the
downturn. One of the strategies that can be used is limit flights to the countries that
have very high COVID-19 cases. It is because countries that have high-risk COVID-
19 cases are very dangerous for the passengers who are on the flight from another
countries. In fact, even if their destination is not in that specific country who has high-
risk COVID-19 cases, it is very likely that they can still be infected due to local
people from that country. This virus also can even take human lives without we
realizing it. Therefore, by restricting flights to other countries can reduce the number
of Covid-19 cases in one's own country as well.

Next, other than limiting flights to other high-risk countries, they should also
halve the employees of the airlines industry for the good of the countries. This is
because there are many employees from the airline industry who work in different
departments such as operation agents, passenger service agent, flight dispatchers, and
so on. So, airlines industry the airlines industry needs many employees so that the
airlines keep running well. However, no matter how big or small the place is,
COVID-19 can still be contagious quickly especially in crowded areas inside the
airport and it is very dangerous for employees working at the front desk or customer
service section.

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 Furthermore, the government needs to tighten the Standard Operation
Procedure (SOP) in the airport area. This is because airports are potentially
contagious areas and very dangerous if people are not careful and vigilant. Besides,
many people, regardless of locals or tourists, will prefer not to travel because they are
terrified of the COVID-19 infection there. So, to keep one's health from getting
infected, wearing a mask is a necessity when going anywhere, especially at the
airport. Following SOPs such as avoiding touching surfaces and frequent hand
washing are also required for everyone at this time to avoid infection of one another.
As well as that, with strict SOPs at the airport, people do not have to worry too much
about going to the airport. Because of the airlines' opening of conditions, the airline
industry will benefit as well, and the economy may gradually improve in the future.

Last but not least, the airline industry should consider selling cheap and
affordable airline tickets to everyone to keep the country’s economy running despite
being in a pandemic situation. This is because, if they still put an expensive price on a
pandemic situation, most likely people will not purchase flight tickets because of the
declining country’s economy which is affecting employees from various occupations.
In actual fact, when the economy declines, it will also have severe impact on the
airlines industry. So, by suggesting this strategy, it is mostly might be able to pull the
people to use air transportation with strict controls on it and at the same time it is
slowly increase the economy of airline industry.

In conclusion, it will take time to coordinate the implementation of policies

and practices mandated by governments worldwide. However, there is knowledge and
strategies available to operators to slowly support “open the skies,” such as the
strategies that mentioned above. To control and manage the COVID-19 pandemic
risk, it is critical that procedures established by appropriate industry authorities are
consistently followed. In terms of passenger transportation, every component of
departure and arrival airports, own flights, and other supply chain operators must
ensure consistent effective risk management. Therefore, the airline industry needs to
support these recovery strategies in middle of COVID-19 process carefully by
considering how it plays the role of aviation in the future.

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 4. CONCLUSION

For instance, the global pandemic that caused by the virus called Covid-19 gave
a huge impact to the Global Distribution System providers in this country. The
negative impacts gave so much burdens and troubles to every industry and also to the
GDS providers. The most common industry that have been affected by the pandemic
is airline industry. This industry is the most affected because the pandemic is blocking
or stopping people around the world from travelling or move from one country to
another. This happened because the virus is easily spread by droplets and people need
to avoid from spreading the virus to the world widely so travelling need to be banned
and airline industry is facing negative impacts and problems from it.

There are more than three effects of Covid-19 pandemic to the GDS providers.
The first effect is the GDS will downturn in demand from the hospitality industry.
Next, many countries refused to allow flights from the high-risk countries to enter
other country. Besides that, the revenue will decrease globally and economically. The
last effect is the GDS providers need to decide to scale back their operations to cut
flights and to remove the less economical aircraft that wanted to be operated.

Next, in order to recover the airline industry, there are a lot of strategies that we
can do. For example, flight limitation to countries with high-risk of Covid-19 cases,
halve employees of the airlines industry, the government need to tighten the Standard
Operation Procedure (SOP) in the airport area and the airline industry should consider
selling cheap and affordable airline tickets to everyone. Besides all these, there are
many more ways or strategies to save the airlines industry from continuing to be
rained down with problems and incurring huge losses. The strategies are going to
work to recover back the industry.

As a Malaysian, we also need to work together to revitalize the economy of this

country, especially in the aviation industry or airlines industry that is deteriorating due
to the pandemic that happened more than a year ago. In other words, strategies that
have been proposed need to be done in order to save the airline industry.

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 5. REFERENCES

I. https://issuu.com/ellen2222/docs/
why_gds_api__is_important_for_the_travel_and_touri

II. https://corporate.amadeus.com/en/newsroom/amadeus-mitigates-the-impact-
of-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-continues-to-invest-for-the-future

III. https://corporate.amadeus.com/en/newsroom/amadeus-mitigates-the-impact-
of-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-continues-to-invest-for-the-future

IV. https://blog.aci.aero/covid-19-strategizing-airport-operations-for-the-new-
norm/

V. https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/covid-19-and-the-
aviation-industry-impact-and-policy-responses-26d521c1/

VI. https://www.willistowerswatson.com/en-GB/Insights/2020/06/how-covid-19-
has-affected-the-aviation-industry

VII. https://www.hospitalitynet.org/opinion/4098062.html

VIII. https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/pr/2020-03-05-01/

IX. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84127-7