Question : Award of Tender to Travel Port

(a) the details of the notification of the tender as well as the closing date of the tender which has been awarded to Travel Port;

(b) the details of the pre-requisites and evaluation criteria for selection of bidder to award the tender;

(c) the list of all bidders who had bid in the said tender which has been awarded to Travel Port;

(d) whether a sole and exclusive criteria exists for awarding such a tender; and

(e) the details of communication informing bidders on whether they are successful or not?

The Minister of State in the Ministry of CIVIL AVIATION
(Shri Jayant Sinha)

(a) & (b): In order to select one Global Distribution System (GDS) company for exclusive distribution of Air India''s domestic inventory in Point of Sale (POS)- India, Limited Tender was issued to the 4 GDS Companies in India namely Amadeus, Travelport, Sabre and Abacus, which were already distributing Air India inventory. The Limited tender was issued on 07th September 2016. Two bids were received before the last date for bidding which was 22nd September 2016. The Limited tender invited offers from only the existing 4 GDS service providers in India. Thus only these 4 GDS service providers were eligible to offer their rates. The objective of the Limited tender was to lower the cost of operations.

(c): Out of the four, only two GDS Companies namely Amadeus and Travelport submitted their bids. ;

(d): The Limited bid sought rates for providing GDS services under the new framework of exclusive partnership for distributing Air India''s domestic inventory. ;

(e): Travelport was L1 (Lowest One) bidder and Amadeus was L2 (Second Lowest) bidder. Thereafter discussions were held with both parties to improve their rates. Travelport continued to be the lowest bidder ( L1). Vide letter dated 4.6.2018, M/s Amadeus was informed that the proposals received from Amadeus failed to address the Air India''s concerns. Accordingly, the termination notice for the existing contract was issued.