Iberia said its distribution overhaul will speed up its ability in 2022 to roll out new products, such as by letting the Spanish flag carrier more easily bundle seats with ancillaries at new price points. “The technology we’ve adopted is more agile and is going to allow us to develop new products in a faster way,” said Celia Muñoz Espin, sales strategy and distribution director at Iberia. “It’s about competitiveness and getting more revenue.” Iberia’s story provides insight into a recent flurry of similar moves by other airlines. Many executives now believe that selling seats and ancillaries more nimbly could bolster larger carriers’ competitiveness. It’s well known that airlines seek relative advantage by cutting costs and boosting productivity. But distribution technology — namely, smarter software for pricing, bundling, and distributing airfares and upsells to travel agencies — is increasingly seen as giving early adopters an edge, too. Iberia’s parent company International Airlines Group (IAG) said on Thursday it had signed a deal to begin providing airfares and ancillaries from Iberia, Aer Lingus, British Airways, and Vueling to travel agencies that use Travelport’s distribution systems via next-generation connectivity methods. Several large airline groups have been signing similar deals with the tech middlemen who distribute content to agencies: Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport, and Travelsky.<br/>
oneworld
British Airways has signed a deal for aircraft fuel made from recycled cooking oils and other household waste to be produced at scale in the UK and to be in use as early as 2022 to help power its flights. The airline revealed on Thursday evening it had reached the agreement with a refinery in north Lincolnshire to purchase thousands of tonnes of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which it said would add up to the equivalent of 700 transatlantic flights on a Boeing 787 with net zero carbon emissions. BA has committed to power 10% of its flights with SAFs by 2030, and has forged partnerships with US fuel suppliers as well as invested in a future waste-to-fuel plant to be constructed in the north-east of England. The deal with the Phillips 66 Humber refinery will bring commercial production of greener jet fuel to the UK earlier than anticipated. While SAFs still produce carbon emissions in flight, the recycling reduces “lifecycle CO2 emissions” by more than 80% compared with traditional jet fuel, the airlines say. Sean Doyle, BA’s CE, said it was “another important step on our journey to net zero carbon emissions”, adding: “The UK has the resources and capabilities to be a global leader in the development of SAF, and scaling up the production of SAF requires a truly collaborative approach between industry and government.”<br/>