Abacus Issues Airline Tix in China
Abacus International became the first non-Chinese GDS to issue airline tickets for mainland China travel agencies. The achievement follows Abacus’ Billing and Settlement Plan certification in June. Foreign GDSs were long shut out of the Chinese market, which is dominated by TravelSky Technologies, but they recently won the right to process sales of non-Chinese airlines by mainland agents. Based in Singapore, Abacus is owned by Sabre Corp. and a consortium of Asian airlines, including All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific, China Airlines, EVA Airways, Garuda Indonesia, Dragonair, Philippine Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Royal Brunei Airlines, SilkAir and Singapore Airlines.