I work in the industry, and I disagree. If we want to be more exact, most of the airline volume is through Global Distribution Systems (GDSs). I'd say that truly "direct" sales are in a minority.
But sales through aggregators have soared (mostly using the Amadeus GDS)
As mentioned in other comments, corporate travel does not buy direct and, along with luxury travel, are the two last holdouts of travel agents - I agree with the article in that agents are becoming more irrelevant for non-corporate bookings, although they're fighting back :) .
"market share loss due to disintermediation, which was starting to become a problem for GDS companies, has slowed considerably, according to Amadeus.
Airlines have realized that the reach GDS companies provide -- especially to business travelers -- cannot be matched by the airlines themselves.
Low-cost carriers (LCCs) like RyanAir (NASDAQ:RYAAY) and Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) didn't use GDS to sell their tickets. After their initial growth period, during which they tapped deal-seeking customers, their growth slowed down. They couldn't access the higher-margin business travelers. Hence, most of the LCCs, including Southwest, RyanAir, and jetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU), had to come back to GDSs to increase their growth rates."
GDSs have been so prevalent for so long in the industry that their use surely counts as the new 'direct sales', no? Like if I phone up an airline directly to book, based on an advert I saw which was funded by them directly, the airline would typically still use a GDS to make the booking?
That last quote is somewhat misleading; Southwest adopted the Amadeus GDS for their internal reservations in 2007, replacing a homegrown system. In their 2015 exposed their bookings through Amadeus but only through i:FAO for corporate customers, not the public who still have to buy direct.
Also, the definition of 'most of the LCCs' conveniently excludes, well, most of the World's LCCs...
That's true at a high level, but off on some dates.
Southwest cut a deal with Amadeus in 2007, but is still using the internal homegrown copy of Sabre for all domestic bookings. If you book something that lands outside the US, it goes via Amadeus. They will move all reservations to Amadeus, but over the next year or so.
They exposed bookings to corporate booking tools starting in 2009, but not via a GDS, but rather by a private connection.[1]
Then, in 2015, they exposed bookings via Amadeus, including domestic, to corporate travel tools. But, the booking itself does land in the aforementioned homegrown reservation system.
But sales through aggregators have soared (mostly using the Amadeus GDS)
As mentioned in other comments, corporate travel does not buy direct and, along with luxury travel, are the two last holdouts of travel agents - I agree with the article in that agents are becoming more irrelevant for non-corporate bookings, although they're fighting back :) .
See for example:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/3110756-global-distribution...
"market share loss due to disintermediation, which was starting to become a problem for GDS companies, has slowed considerably, according to Amadeus.
Airlines have realized that the reach GDS companies provide -- especially to business travelers -- cannot be matched by the airlines themselves.
Low-cost carriers (LCCs) like RyanAir (NASDAQ:RYAAY) and Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) didn't use GDS to sell their tickets. After their initial growth period, during which they tapped deal-seeking customers, their growth slowed down. They couldn't access the higher-margin business travelers. Hence, most of the LCCs, including Southwest, RyanAir, and jetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU), had to come back to GDSs to increase their growth rates."