Facilitating users with options for finding particularly low priced flights within Germany or Europe, HitchHiker has shared that it now interfaces dba directly via API (Application Programming Interface) onto the dba host.

Published: 11 Dec 2005

Facilitating users with options for finding particularly low priced flights within Germany or Europe, HitchHiker has shared that it now interfaces dba directly via API (Application Programming Interface) onto the dba host.

www.travelchannel.de will be the launching customer for this new direct interface.

Claus Fischer, director - commercial development and planning, dba said that a direct interface provides a much more robust connection than the conventional method of screen scraping. Fischer attributed successful implementation to teamwork between HitchHiker and its Internet Booking Engine development team, 2e Systems.

According to a release, Travelchannel has been using HitchHiker’s Internet Booking Engine and its WebFares Engine successfully for their web portal for over six years now. Apart from the standard GDS interface, Travelchannel also uses HitchHiker’s WebFares Engine to query and book Internet based airlines.

“Naturally, the consumer will profit from this new, direct interface because they will receive the entire overview of all of the available tariffs in dba within a very short time. These being favorably priced and of a wider range than when using the screen scraping method. Consequently, we think that we will be able to double the already high amount of dba bookings within the next year,” said Thorsten Hardtmann product manager for Flight at Travelchannel.

“Dba is our first direct airline interface and further interfaces are already in development. The need for direct interfaces will definitely grow in the future due to GDS deregulation. Therefore, it is highly important for us to be highly competent in both markets, those being the GDS and Internet market.”

“Right off the bat the customer can decide in which direction he would like to go,” said David Friderici eCommerce Director at HitchHiker GmbH.

As soon as all three companies give the go-ahead for the interface, the new plug-in will be available for all HitchHiker IBE customers and TeMyra.net use, automatically, added a release.