A request from IATA (International Air Transport Association, see
http://www.iata.org).
While IATA welcomes the gTLD-MoU initiative, we still see an outstanding
business requirement that is not yet being addressed, i.e. to provide for
exclusive registration or management of a gTLD for a specific business sector
in the international context. The objective would be to guarantee uniqueness
of domain names and predictive naming schemes within an international "closed
user group".
For years, IATA has provided unique city and airline codes for messaging
applications for the air transport industry. These applications ran over
airline-owned networks, with IATA (as a neutral non-profit organisation)
being given exclusive management of the codes. All participants (and
ultimately consumers) benefited from this arrangement.
As they move towards more cost-effective communications in the Internet
context, IATA airlines would very much like to have similar guaranteed unique
names. It seems that this can only be possible if there is only one entity
managing the codes, as in the private network context.
Benefits: currently, in many cases companies are unable to reserve their
well-known, trademarked names because those names have been reserved by other
companies or individuals. Having a top-level domain would allow the industry
to forward fit the current interline addressing scheme for next generation IP
systems. For example, if a passenger travels Paris-Frankfurt-Singapore on
Air France and Singapore Airlines, and arrives in Singapore without his
luggage, a predictive naming scheme would allow the Singapore agent to query
Air France baggage in Paris and Frankfurt regarding the lost bag. Similarly,
such a scheme would be beneficial to other airport applications such as
special meals and passenger assistance. A predictive naming scheme
facilitates interline communication, which should result in increased
customer satisfaction.
I imagine other international business sectors may have similar requirements.
Would it not be possible to at least provide for exclusive MANAGEMENT of a
gTLD (e.g. by a neutral non-profit international organisation), but still
provide for multiple registrars under this "manager" (thus retaining the
market-oriented aspect of the MoU)?
Many thanks for your consideration, and I would welcome any comments.
Best regards,
Ron Cole
Manager, Development
IATA Geneva
(email: coler@iata.org)