2013年公共英语一级考试口语指导（4）

The search is on

搜索在继续

Hoping to solve these problems, the airlines’ international association, IATA, is working on a grandly titled "new distribution capability". One of its main elements will be a common technical standard for direct-connect services. The GDSs could make use of such services, so as to sell the airlines’ full range of extras as well as just flights. But perhaps of more interest to the airlines is that it would become easier for travel agents to build computer systems that deal directly with airlines. It would also become easier for search engines to scour the web for flights, assemble a list of options for travellers, then let them click through to the website of their chosen airline to complete the booking—again without a GDS’s involvement.

为了解决这些问题，航空公司国际组织：国际航空运输协会, 正致力于一个名为"新分销能力"的宏大项目。它的主旨之一是为直接联系服务建立一个共同技术标准。全球分销系统也可以利用这些服务，从而为航空公司销售各类附加服务，或者仅仅只是提供订票服务。但，也许航空公司更感兴趣的是，它使得旅行社建立电脑系统和航空公司相连变得容易了许多。同时，也使得搜索引擎可以更加容易地搜索网页上的航班信息，形成列表提供给旅客，旅客们可以通过在网站上点击经它们筛选过的航班完成预定—在这过程中，没有GDS的参与。

Such a service is already offered by Google (which has bought ITA, an airline-software firm, and Frommer’s, a guidebook publisher, as part of its push into the travel business). The airlines hope that common technical standards will also encourage the creation of lots of innovative new travel-search firms. Adam Wood, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, is sceptical: it would be hugely expensive for any new entrant to replicate the existing GDSs’ heavy spending on technology: the need for such investment makes flight distribution a business that naturally tends towards an oligopoly, he reckons.

谷歌现已提供此类服务(Google购买了已经购买了航空软件公司ITA和指南出版商Frommer，作为进军旅游业务的一部分)。航空公司希望共同技术标准也将促进更多的新型旅行搜索公司的诞生。摩根士丹利的分析师亚当•伍德对此表示怀疑：任何新晋企业想要复制全球分销系统，都要在技术上投入大量资金。对投资的需求会使得航班分销生意趋于寡头垄断，他做出如上预测。

IATA hopes to have its new technical standards agreed by the end of the year-though as a rule, getting airlines to agree on such things is tricky. Then there would be the problem of implementation; the industry, like every other, has seen ambitious IT projects fail disastrously. Suppose that IATA does persuade hundreds of airlines to agree on the new technical standards, and successfully build computer systems that run on them. Even then, admits Gary Doernhoefer, an IATA official, the GDSs’ grip on the industry may not change much without regulatory action to unpick their cosy agreements with travel agents.

国际航空运输协会希望今年底可以通过新的技术标准。尽管这是条规则，但想获得航空公司的同意却有些棘手。随后还要面临着实施这条规则的问题：航空行业和其他行业一样，都曾经历过大型IT项目惨败的结局。假设国际航空运输协会说服了数百家航空公司同意新的技术标准，并成功地建立了运行的电脑系统。即使这样，如若不消除航空公司和旅行社之间联系紧密的协议, 全球分销系统对整个行业的控制可能也不会发生太大的变化，国际航空运输协会官员加里承认道。