Travel Rockstar Interview - Jim Davidson

  • 20 min

Travel Rockstar - Jim Davidson

The Travel Rockstars Podcast

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Jim Davidson, Vice Chairman at Accelya

Let's start with something about you. How did you start your professional career and how did you get into the travel industry?

Well, I’ll give you the abbreviated version — because I’m old and I don’t want to spend all the time talking about myself.

In a previous career, I was actually a counselor and a guidance counselor, and I taught at a university. During that time, I did my MBA. I’ve always loved airline travel, and I wrote my MBA thesis on the hub-and-spoke system — which probably dates me a little bit — focusing on Piedmont Airlines.

I had the privilege of going to the Piedmont Airlines corporate headquarters in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to present my thesis. That experience really sparked a passion for the airline industry.

I thought about actually working for an airline, but at that time you kind of started by throwing bags and working your way up. I was a little impatient. What I really loved was the technology side of airlines.

So I went to work for Official Airline Guides (OAG). A group of us there started a company doing corporate travel bookings. This was back in the days when every month we published an eight-inch floppy disk with airline schedules on it. Corporations could use it to make bookings and put rules into the system.

So I’ve had a long history with corporate travel. That company was sold to System One. Ultimately, I became the CEO of System One North America and then Amadeus North America.

I left the industry for a little bit to work in supply chain, but then I came back and founded Farelogix. I ran Farelogix for about 15 years, and we sold it to Accelya during COVID.

Really, I’ve been in travel technology pretty much my whole career. I love NDC. I love airline reservation systems. I’ve worked for GDSs and learned a lot from them — they’re very solid companies — but I’ve also always felt they were a little slow on innovation. So we thought we could be more disruptive.

Over time, we worked with TMCs, airlines, and focused heavily on airline distribution. It was “Direct Connect” before it was NDC. Now it’s NDC globally, and we’re looking at One Order and what airlines do next to better engage with customers.

Throughout all of that, corporate travel has remained a focus for me. That’s where the complexity is — and that’s where the opportunity is — to really streamline and create value between the corporate traveler, the corporate travel manager, the TMC, and the airline.

Is there something that particularly fascinates you about this industry?

Yes. There are a couple of things.

First, the amount of data in this industry fascinates me — and historically how we haven’t captured that data in a really meaningful way. And particularly what I mean by that is using data to benefit the ecosystem — whether that’s the traveler or the airline.

If you look at how airline reservations have been made historically, a lot of it is fairly opaque. You kind of add your frequent flyer number afterward. The system doesn’t really know you at the beginning.

We’ve always believed that with data, we can make the ecosystem work more smoothly and closer together. If travelers are entitled to certain things, the reservation system should know that. The system should be capable of packaging dynamically.

That’s really been our passion — using data to create a smoother ecosystem and make things more consumer-friendly. And frankly, to be a little disruptive in how we think about the traditional structures.

Who or what has inspired you and/or continues to do so today? 

When I first wrote my MBA paper, I was actually going to write it about railroads because my grandfather was a railroad engineer. My professor talked me out of that and said, “Go to airlines.”

Once I got into learning about airlines — and I’m not an airline expert by any means — I realized that the technology being utilized is always trying to catch up.

That’s been a passion of mine: trying to get the technology out in front of the demand in the airline industry, rather than having the technology limit where the airlines can go.

The airline industry is fairly conservative, and safety obviously permeates the entire ecosystem. That’s a good thing — but it also puts a delay and a limit on new technology.

So my driver has always been: can we get technology ahead of where the industry is going? Can we enable innovation instead of constraining it?

It’s a difficult challenge — but it’s given me a long career.

What has been your favourite experience during your professional career to date?

I don’t know if there’s a single favourite one.

But I’ve had the privilege of traveling almost everywhere there’s an airline. And because of that, I got to know the world. I got to know a lot of really great people in the airline industry.

To me, that was the gift my career gave me. I got to see the world — and frankly, someone else paid for it.

It took its toll, sure. But what I look back on most are the acquaintances and friends I’ve made around the world, and the shared challenges we worked on for 20 or 30 years.

If I had a wish for anyone in this business, it would be to get out there and have that same experience.

In your opinion, what is the greatest achievement in travel technology since the turn of the millennium?

Part of me says we’re still waiting for it.

There have been a lot of tremendously incremental technological advances.

I think getting the ecosystem to work closer together through technology is really the path we’re on — and that will take cost out and create more value for everybody.

I get excited about laying the foundation for getting the customer closer to the product, getting intermediaries to function as true intermediaries — because I think there will always be some set of intermediaries — but with more efficiency.

The ability for travelers to focus their attention on getting what they want through search, delivery, and then the experience at the airport and beyond — that’s the journey.

We’ve talked about this for 20 years. I really think the foundation is finally in place.

Whether you call it One Order, OOSD, or next-generation retailing — all of that is about collapsing the ecosystem so the consumer is closer to the product.

If I were 40 again, I’d say NDC was a great start. But the big breakthrough is still coming. Once you get NDC, you open up the possibility of One Order. Once you get One Order, you start connecting the entire experience — from the time the traveler decides to travel to the moment they get into an Uber or limo at the end.

I think we’ll see shorter innovation cycles now.

Do you have a favourite among the technologies that have been developed for the travel industry? 

If I had to pick, I’d say NDC — not because it’s the final destination, but because it was a great start and it created the foundation for what comes next.

NDC itself didn’t completely “collapse the ecosystem” between the consumer and the product, but without NDC you don’t get the opportunity to even look at what One Order would look like. And once you have One Order, you can start connecting the whole travel experience end-to-end — not just shopping and booking, but everything from the moment the traveler decides, through the airport experience, all the way to the point they get into an Uber or limo.

So my “favourite” is really the set of technologies that are moving the industry toward modern retailing — NDC as the foundation, and then One Order / OOSD as the next major step that will have an even bigger impact.

What would you recommend to newcomers to the industry in terms of technology?

It’s a tough industry to break into. It’s conservative from an investment point of view and conservative in adopting new technology. Many startups struggle to gain traction.

If I were starting again, I’d focus on really good ideas that look at the entire ecosystem. And then I’d go get a big customer.

One thing we did successfully was not focus on small airlines first — we went after the big ones. We believed that if we could make it work for a big airline, we could make it work for a small one. The other way around is harder because credibility matters so much.

It takes persistence, time, and money. But when we created value for large airlines, that allowed us to do things industry-wide.

Where do you currently see the biggest and most important challenges in the industry? Do you have any thoughts on how you would tackle them?

Again, I go back to data. We generate so much data across the entire process. Now we’re finally getting tools to use that data more effectively.

I think we’re going to see an explosion of how data and AI come into the travel ecosystem. Airlines will prosper from it, and because of that, consumers will prosper.

If I were in university again, I’d focus on AI — rather than just learning the tools of today.

Quick-Fire Fragen

Who is the next Business Travel Rockstar we should interview?

 Paul Tilstone Founder at Temoij.