The russian airline Aeroflot has been excluded from the two major platforms, Amadeus and Sabre, which control the world’s supply of airline tickets for the vast majority of airlines so that they can be booked by agencies, websites and companies.
Both the Spanish Amadeus and the American Saber – which together dominate more than 80% of the air ticket distribution market, according to calculations by industry sources – have decided to join the international boycott with which the business world wants to condemn the attack of Ukraine promoted by Moscow.
“We have begun to suspend the distribution of Aeroflot fares in our systems,” the Spanish company Amadeus confirmed to Efe this Friday.
Its other great competitor, the American Saber, already announced on Thursday that it had terminated its agreement with Aeroflot, the airline controlled by the Moscow Government, which has been forced to suspend all its flights to Europe, among other destinations, such as consequence of the sanctions imposed by the European Union.
“We declare ourselves against this military conflict,” said Sean Menke, the CEO of Saber, who is also studying whether, in addition to complying with the sanctions imposed against Russia, take more measures.
Amadeus has also decided to operate in the same way: “Seeing the attacks on Ukraine, we have immediately stopped any new commercial project that we could have foreseen in Russia,” the platform explains to Efe.
“We will not sign any new contracts in Russia and, in parallel, we continue to evaluate our current commercial portfolio in that country. At the same time, we continue to assess and analyze the possible repercussions of the international sanctions imposed on Russia, as well as possible countermeasures by that country,” he adds.
In addition, it defends that “our immediate priority remains the safety and well-being of our colleagues and their families in Ukraine.”
