Sojern, founded in 2007, says it will use the money to expand its product offerings.

Among its offerings, Sojern displays advertising on boarding passesand itineraries when travelers check-in for their flights online. Partners include Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Hawaiian Airlines, US Airways, United Airlines and Travelport.

Sojern says it “offers advertisers cross-channel marketing solutions by leveraging real traveler data to form powerful audience segments and analytical insights.”

Sojern raised $16 million in a previous round and plans to use the new funding for mobile advertising solutions, according to vatornews.

Here’s the video, entry #4 in Farelogix’s Ask the Question series:

Of course, when American Airlines threatened to withdraw from the Sabre GDS several years ago, some major travel management companies signed on with Farelogix, which distributes airline content, to access American and other carriers as a sort of GDS insurance in the event that major carriers opt to quit a GDS or two.

Perhaps Farelogix should be asked some questions, as well.

What would it do to your value proposition if American Airlines or Air Canada decided to give you only a portion of their content? Would that be good for Farelogix and its TMC clients?

Probably not.

And does Farelogix, which is set up to distribute American Airlines’ ancillary services, which aren’t in the GDSs, benefit if airlines decline to deliver full content to GDSs?

I think the answer would have to be yes.

Still, does Farelogix make any valid points in the video?

Do full-content deals hurt travel agencies economically, thwart airline innovation and force travel agencies to compete on price?

After all, the GDSs will be negotiating full-content agreements with major U.S. airlines in 2011, although the term “full-content” is a misnomer since so much inventory these days is offered exclusively on Twitter, Facebook or airline websites.

But, what do you think about Farelogix’s main points?

For example, 52% of business travelers who booked hotels on their mobile devices did so through a browser while 21% booked overnight accommodations through their mobile apps, Google says.

For what Google terms “personal,” or leisure, travelers, 52% of mobile bookers used browsers to book or reserve hotels while only 11% used mobile apps, according the survey.

The browse-over-mobile-apps pattern holds true for all travel categories, according to the survey, although the disparitybetween browser and app use narrows with ooking bvacation activities.

For example, 25% of business travelers who booked vacation activities on their mobile devices did so through a browser while 20% booked vacation activities through their mobile apps.

For personal travelers, 25% who booked vacation activities used browers on their mobile devices while only 10% used mobile apps, according the survey.

Does this mean app developers should packl it in and travel companies should focus exclusively on building better mobile websites?

Not necessarily.

The numbers may be skewed because not all hotels or vacation activity vendors have viable mobile apps, so in some cases opening up a browser may be the only or best option for some travel bookings from mobile devices.

On the other hand, a focus on mobile websites could make the browser option even more attractive.

How that plays out remains to be seen.

Gathering travel research is probably the most frequently used function on mobile devices in the travel planning and booking process, according to the survey.

The survey found, for example, 44% of business travelers and 31% of personal travelers planning cruises used their mobile devices to look for travel information about cruises; 18% of business-traveler and 9% of personal-traveler cruisers used their mobile devices to book or reserve cruises; and 21% of business-traveler and 8% of personal-traveler cruisers used their mobile devices to “check-in” for their cruises using location-based services such as Foursquare or Gowalla.

Another major finding in the Google survey, “The Traveler’s Road to Decision,” is that travelers are increasingly uploading videos of their trips.

In a previous survey, conducted in 2008, “only 4% of travelers reporting uploading a video from their past travels in the previous six months,” Google says.

In the current survey, 9% of personal travelers uploaded travel video in the past 6 months in 2010 and 6% uploaded travel video in 2009.

For business travelers, 23% uploaded travel video in the past six months in 2010 and 16% did so in the prior two months in 2009, the survey found.

“As online video grows in popularity, not only more travelers are viewing them throughout the travel planning process, but they are uploading travel-related content as well,” the survey says.

That means suppliers and intermediaries of all types should allocate some resources to develop or acquire video content.

That’s not an earth-shattering conclusion, but the survey supports it.

To reach its findings about travelers’ online behavior, Google’s survey polled 5,000 U.S. online users who indicated they were business or personal travelers in the second quarter of 2010.

As the Justice Dept. reviews the proposed transaction, Tnooz conducted the following interview with Expedia Inc. President and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi about Expedia’s role in the regulatory review.

Tnooz: Is Expedia pushing the Justice Dept. to block the Google-ITA deal?

Khosrowshahi: “The DOJ contacted us for our thoughts about the deal . We are not pushing them one way or the other. So, obviously we’ve got some concerns about the potential transaction. We shared our views with them. But, it is not up to us to push the DOJ one way or the other. They will make up their own minds.”

Tnooz: What kinds of concerns are you expressing to them?

Khosrowshahi: “I don’t want to get into specifics. I think in general, you have two pretty dominant services. Obviously, Google is the dominant search provider in the U.S. and in Europe that extends to travel, which is our category. And, then you got ITA which is arguably the dominant flight search technology that is selling to third parties. To the extent those two come together, there are some potential concerns about what that combined company can do. And the DOJ asked us various questions. We answered the questions …”

Tnooz: So, in your talks with the DOJ you are not advocating a position one way or the other? Are you asking that any conditions be put on the deal like the DOJ did recently with its review of the United-Continental merger?

Khosrowshahi: “We haven’t had discussions about conditions etc. with the DOJ at this point. From my understanding, the DOJ is in fact-finding mode and obviously a lot of people in this industry are concerned about this deal and, based on both Google’s and ITA’s market position,  I don’t blame anyone for their concern. But I think the DOJ generally is in fact-finding mode and that’s where we stand right now.”

Tnooz: So you don’t anticipate being more forceful in your opinions about what should happen?

Khosrowshahi: “I think at this point we haven’t determined what we are going to do. Obviously, we want to talk to Google and have discussions with them about what their intentions are etc. But it is pretty early in the process. You know, I think we haven’t fully fleshed out what our intentions are at this point.”

Tnooz: Google is saying this deal could close in a couple of months, but you are saying these are the early days of the DOJ process?

Khosrowshahi: “At this point they asked us some questions and we shared some concerns with them. That’s where are discussions with the DOJ are now. It may change early enough.”

Tnooz: There’s been talk that Expedia is playing an active role in the industry in rallying the troops against this deal.  Are you talking to the GDSs and other online travel agencies in trying to get their support  to get this deal stopped?

Khosrowshahi: “Obviously because of our position in the industry, we talk to the GDSs and we talk to suppliers on a daily basis and, as you might expect, in the more recent discussions this potential transaction has come up. It’s just something that you talk about. It’s a big deal. So we talk to other players in the industry about it. The DOJ has reached out to a number of folks and at this point  we haven’t determined whether we are going to move in an active direction or not. At this point, we are talking to people, we talked with the DOJ and that’s where we stand.”

Tnooz: You said you will talk to Google. So you haven’t talked to Google yet about the deal and how it might play out?

Khosrowshahi: “We talk to them [Google] all the time. They are a great partner of ours and we work with them quite well on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, and again, the subject comes up. They let us know about the transaction signing pretty early on and the discussions with Google are ongoing, just as our relationship is ongoing.

Tnooz: Expedia’s public statements about the deal seem to have changed since you first talked about it, saying Expedia would not be overly exposed to this deal. Chairman Barry Diller made some strong statements about how this would be a dangerous move. So, your position seems to have changed a bit, right?

Khosrowshahi: “I think it’s consistent in that from a short-term perspective we are not an ITA consumer. As a result, the near-term consequences for us are not significant. Hotwire and TripAdvisor use ITA and obviously the concern there is to  ITA’s availability to them on a long-term basis. I think when you step back, I think what Barry was talking about is that strategically you are combining the dominant search provider and the dominant air search service provider and from that standpoint we don’t think it is a good thing. We talked to the DOJ about that. Now Google is a great partner and they are telling us the right things, but structurally, we don’t think this deal’s a good thing for the industry. We’ll see how it plays out.”

Tnooz: Are there any thoughts about dropping ITA for Hotwire and TripAdvisor?

Khosrowshahi: “Again, we are in wait and see mode. Google has told us nothing will change and for now we’ll take their word for it. And, If something changes, we’ll evaluate ITA based on  the product. … There are no specific plans changing based on this transaction, at least not yet.”

Tnooz: Are there any plans to commercialize your own air-search product, Best Fare Search, and to market it to third parties, now that there is a lot of concern about ITA in the industry?

Khosrowshahi: “We have no specific plans at this point. It is theoretically possible. But there are a number of hurdles there, and it would be pretty costly to do so for us. We have to find customers etc. We’ve had some discussions about it. It is a bit of leap taking BFS from an internal technology to a technology that’s consumable by third parties. “

Tnooz: There’s been a lot of talk about leading up to the Google-ITA deal that Expedia sought to invest in Kayak and in some kind of way to keep ITA out of Google’s hands. Can you explain what happened there and are you still considering taking a stake in or buying Kayak?

Khosrowshahi: “I don’t want to comment on deal talk. Obviously what happened is that Google and ITA came to an agreement. But I don’t  want to comment specifically on what could have happened or what you read about what happened.”

Tnooz: Is the $750 million you recently raised in a debt sale related to the Google-ITA deal and the fallout?

Khosrowshahi: “Unrelated. The cost of debt capital right now is at historical lows. We thought it was a great time right now to go to market and raise some capital.”

Sabre says it will provide Airphil Express, which is expanding beyond 28 domestic destinations and will begin providing service to Singapore in October, with new tools to handle unbundling and ancillary services in a five-year contract extension.

In 2009, Airphil Express cut over to SabreSonic for reservation and ticketing, online booking and payment, travel agency portal and load manager services.

So, unlike many such cutovers where Sabre begins handling an airline’s internal reservations systems, for AirPhil, Sabre also powers the airline’s online booking engine and is the carrier’s main e-commerce partner.

The Airphil contract extension occurs as Sabre Airline Solutions is expanding its presence in the Philippines.

Sabre Philippines, headquartered in Manila, boosted its staff to 130, from 70 in the first quarter of 2009, and doubled its office space.

Airphil’s drive to unbundle its fare structure with optional services occurs as many carriers globally are doing likewise.

Delta, American, Alaska, Air Canada, AirTran, Frontier, United, US Airways and Virgin America are among Aircell’s customers.

Clearly, Aircell, which has a cell-tower network covering the continental U.S., is the dominant provider of Wi-Fi to mainline aircraft (as opposed to regional jets) in North America.

Slowly, Wi-Fi will become ubiquitous.

Aircell says it will continue to bolster Gogo’s client based in 2010 and will install the service on more jets. Currently 3,800 flights daily have GoGo Wi-Fi service, and that’s up from 2,100 flights a year ago.

Waiting in the wings is satellite-based Row 44, which counts Southwest as its only U.S. customer.

However, Southwest, the largest U.S. domestic airline, has some 540 aircraft and Row 44 is slated to have the entire fleet Wi-Fi-enabled in 2013.

Aircell and Row 44 battled over the Alaska Air account, with the carrier running tests of both systems, and ultimately chose Aircell a few months ago.

Aircell says it installed Gogo service in numerous Alaska, Delta and American jets in August.

Row 44 seems perplexed about Alaska’s choice of Aircell.

“They chose a few months back to switch to Aircell,” says Row 44 spokesman Robbie Hyman, referring to Alaska. “Given the importance of their over-water routes, and the fact that Aircell cannot support those routes as fare as we know because their system requires constant contact with cell towers on the ground — hard to come by over the ocean — we do not know why Alaska chose this move.”

Alaska spokesperson Bobbie Egan says: “Aircell has a proven track record of deploying affordable inflight Wi-Fi services to airline customers. Its lower-cost equipment, coupled with the ease and speed of installation and finally its system reliability, allow Alaska Airlines to rapidly deploy the service to our customers.”

So Row 77, which says it is targeting airlines globally,  is playing catch-up with Southwest as a big client in the U.S. market and also claims its business model allows for more differentiation for clients.

Row 44, Hyman says, enables clients to brand their own Wi-Fi service and customize their own content while with, Aircell, “American offers the same Gogo service as Delta.”

Sounds good, but in the U.S. market, at least, the majority of carriers with Wi-Fi have opted for Aircell.

“The traffic wasn’t super-high,” says Suzanne Chance, director of online marketing for AVIA’s parent, LodgeWorks.

Then, in April, AVIA enrolled in TripAdvisor Business Listings , a subscription service which places hotel contact information, including a direct link to the hotel website, in the hotels’ TripAdvisor profiles.

There was a sudden spike in traffic from TripAdvisor.

From April through July, that website link from Avia hotels’ four TripAdvisor profiles to its homepages has produced $45,600 in revenue, says Cheryl Gilliam, LodgeWorks’ vice president of brands and marketing.

The total cost of Business Listings for AVIA’s four properties during that period was $3,850, so AVIA made a very nice return on its investment.

Gilliam says it’s a real challenge for an independent brand such as AVIA, which opened its four properties in 2009, to get brand recognition and the revenue that Business Listings produced for the hotels was not the only takeaway.

“It’s an incredible value,” says Suzanne Chance, LodgeWorks director of online marketing, adding that travelers sometimes will visit a website seven times before they book. “People were introduced to the brand and will likely remember us and come back.”

The AVIA brand, which includes the AVIA Savannah, the AVIA Napa, the AVIA Long Beach and the AVIA The Woodlands, uses Sabre Hospitality’s Guest Connect for Internet bookings and takes about 35% 40% of its bookings online.

Gilliam cautions, however, that TripAdvisor Business Listings may work well for leisure properties, but LodgeWorks tested the product on its business-travel oriented Hotel Sierra brand and dropped the listing because business travelers generally aren’t online booking their own hotels and reading reviews,” Gilliam says.

Unlike the company’s boutique hotels, Hotel Sierra properties generally attract only 13% to 14% of their bookings online.

“We understood why it wasn’t returing so there was no need to continue it if it wasn’t paying for itself,” Gilliam adds.

LodgeWorks has participated actively in TripAdvisor for some time, monitors its ranks in the popularity index and has convinced TripAdvisor to delete some unfavorable reviews when it provided evidence that they were fake reviews, Chance says.

TRX aims to offer 20 such “travel technology utilities” and started off with four: Airline Contract Manager, Queue Manager, Profile Manager and Commission Manager.

Spokesman Stephen Carroll says each is offered via SaaS and clients generally pay usage, or transaction, fees. TRX contracts with third-party facilities to host the software, but is considering migrating it all into cloud computing.

Airline Contract Manager, used by several online travel agencies, covers contract “planning, performance evaluation and utilization to compliance, discount optimization and ROI measurement,” TRX says.

Queue Manager, also used by several OTAs, is a workflow-management solution that handles “transactional tasks, tracks agent productivity and identifies process errors trends,” TRX says.

Expedia Inc. is TRX’s largest client.

Profile Manager, which is used by Amadeus e-Travel Management, enables travel managers to establish and store profiles and synchronize changes across all of the major GDSs, TRX says.

Commission Manager, a solution jointly developed with Perot Systems, is a commission-recovery product.

TRX President and CEO Shane Hammond says the company decided to introduce these travel utilities because there was considerable demand for components of the company’s standard offerings, including RESX, CORREX, TRAVELTRAX and Travel Analytics.

e-Travel Techologies, a Mississauga, Ontario, firm which has spent the last couple of decades providing risk-oriented travel information to travel management companies and corporations, launched a subscription service for consumers.

For $2 for one destination per month or $3 per destination for three months in a row, the company e-mails its  e-Travel Alerts, which cover travel advisories ranging from a financial crisis in Greece to riots in Thailand, so it can equip travelers with risk assessments before and during their travels.

The service covers a comprehensive list of destinations and e-Travel Technologies claims “this is the first time that fully comprehensive travel alerts and personalized ‘know before you go’ advisories have been offered directly to the public.”

e-Travel Technologies says its alerts, which are culled from government agencies, the travel industry, security services and some 60 news websites, are updated every 10 minutes.

e-Travel Technologies appears to be targeting unmanaged business travelers for the service.

Don Churchill, president of e-Travel Technologies, says the alerts are delivered via email to PCs and mobile devices, adding that SMS text messages would be too restrictive.

“We are confident that 99.9% of corporate business travellers receive their emails on their mobiles,” Wilson says. “SMS is restricted to 180 characters.”

With the abundance of public information, including Google Alerts, available to consumers about global crises, it remains to be seen whether road warriors will pay for the service.

e-Travel Technologies says it is also building a white label version of its notification service for suppliers.

Those coveted slots at Newark Airport amounted to a  ”principal competition concern” of the U.S. Justice Department, which completed its review of the United-Continental merger.

“The proposed merger would combine the airlines’ largely complementary networks, which would result in overlap on a limited number of routes where United and Continental offer competing nonstop service,” the DOJ stated.

“The largest such routes are between United’s hub airports and Continental’s hub at Newark airport, where Continental has a high share of service and where there is limited availability of slots, making entry by other airlines particularly difficult.

“The transfer of slots and other assets at Newark to Southwest, a low cost carrier that currently has only limited service in the New York metropolitan area and no Newark service, resolves the department’s principal competition concerns and will likely significantly benefit consumers on overlap routes as well as on many other routes.”

With a beefed-up presence in the New York area, Southwest is bound to reap some significant business gains. The slot deal, which is contingent on the United-Continental merger closing by Nov. 30, 2010, would give Southwest the right to operate up to 18 daily roundtrip flights at Newark, with some beginning as soon as March 2011.

Southwest.com already was the most popular U.S. airline website for the weeks ending Aug. 7 and Aug. 21 with 23.13% and 21.06% of visits, respectively, according to Experian Hitwise data.

With 18 more takeoff and landing slots at busy Newark Airport, Southwest may have to buy a few more servers for its website to handle increased traffic.

With the Justice Dept. now having no objections to the merger, the next hurdle for the would-be merged airlines is their respective stockholder-ratification votes Sept. 17.

The deal is expected to close by Oct. 1, United and Continental state.

Meanwhile, the Justice Dept. is now reviewing the Google-ITA Software deal out of competition concerns.

It will be interesting to see if DOJ gets Google-ITA to make some Southwest-like concessions to opponents.