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GDS for sale

April 23, 2008 | Online Travel

G2 SwitchWorks’ reported “disappearance” following its sale of technology assets to Travelport GDS earlier this month was greatly exaggerated, says company founder and CEO Alex Zoghlin. Yet the companies only left asset, its GDS, is for sale, writes TravelWeekly.

The majority of G2’s employees have left to join Travelport GDS and help the company finish developing the Kestrel technology platform that G2 built and sold. Principals who were involved in the development of G2’s GDS will remain with the company until it is sold, and possibly afterward, he said.

“A good portion of the company was working on the [Kestrel] product,” Zoghlin said. “But we have a core set of employees who understand source code and operations of GDS products. To my knowledge, we are the first company in the last 20 to 30 years to build an entirely new GDS system. Part of me says I can’t believe we pulled this off. And given the way economics work in the GDS business, I don’t think it will be profitable for someone to ever try it again.”

But the existing business, Zoghlin said, is healthy and economical to operate, with far lower costs than traditional GDSs. The res system is attracting bidders he described as “big players” who may see the system as a way to save money.

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