Amadeus welcomes Garuda Indonesia to e-ticketing and maintains position as as the world leader in e-ticket distribution and technology
In the countdown to the IATA deadline, a total of 92 airlines in Australia have now been enabled for e-ticketing by Amadeus.
Sydney, 1 May 2008: Amadeus, a global leader in technology and distribution solutions for the travel and tourism industry, is playing an exceptional role helping both airlines and Travel agencies to meet the IATA e-ticket deadline of the end of May 2008.
With Garuda Indonesia being the latest addition to the e-ticketing enabled airlines, Amadeus now reaches the record number of 92 e-ticketing enabled airlines in Australia. Globally, this means Amadeus has now enabled e-ticketing for 268 airlines worldwide, exceeding those of any other single supplier.
Additionally, Amadeus has completed over 1400 interline agreements globally for airlines, meaning their passengers can purchase a single e-ticket for the entirety of a journey with multiple, pre-designated airlines. The number of interline implementations is still growing at a pace of 100 new agreements per month.
Further, now that more and more airlines are already prepared for the IATA initiative of 100% e-ticketing, Amadeus is also helping low cost carriers with their needs for interline electronic ticketing (IET). WestJet and Virgin Blue have already contracted the Amadeus e-ticketing solution to prepare for their interlining agreements with full service carriers and their subsequent need for IET.
“Over 92% of the tickets in Australia issued through Amadeus are now electronic,” commented Tim Russell, Managing Director, Amadeus IT Pacific. “Amadeus is dedicated to ensuring our customers and partners are informed about all the implications of the IATA 100% e-ticketing deadline. We believe this will positively impact the travel and tourism industry, providing cost savings and improvements to the customer experience, and a significantly reduced impact on the environment.”
All the answers to any questions regarding the eticketing deadline can be found on the Amadeus Australia website www.au.amadeus.com
Benefits of e-ticketing
The benefits of e-ticketing are considerable. E-tickets are cheaper to issue, harder to counterfeit and better facilitate self service kiosks at airports. In addition to increasing the security and speed of ticket data they provide a basis for distribution analysis with real-time information on tickets, fares, customers and the sales channels. Their flexibility, combined with to-the-minute accountability, opens up new possibilities for revenue management and last minute sales. IATA estimates that full e-ticketing will generate industry savings of US $3 billion per year.
Notes to the editors
About Amadeus
Amadeus is the chosen technology partner for providers, sellers, and buyers of travel. The company provides distribution, IT and point-of-sale solutions to help its customers adapt, grow and succeed in the fast changing travel industry. Customer groups include travel providers (airlines, hotels, car rental companies, railway companies, ferry lines, cruise lines, insurance companies and tour operators), travel sellers (travel agencies) and travel buyers (corporations and travellers). Solutions are grouped in four solution categories – Distribution & Content, Sales & e-Commerce, Business Management and Services & Consultancy.
Amadeus’ distribution system allows over 75,000 travel agency locations and 11,000 airline offices to make bookings on 500 airlines. It provides access to over 58,000 hotel properties and 42 car rental companies serving over 30,000 locations.
Amadeus has central sites in Madrid (corporate headquarters & marketing), Nice (development) and Erding (Operations – data processing centre) and regional offices in Miami, Buenos Aires and Bangkok. Amadeus has offices in 75 countries covering more than 215 markets. The company has over 6,500 employees worldwide, representing 95 nationalities. For the six months ended 30 June 2005, Amadeus reported revenues of €1,226.1m and net income of €154.2m. More information about Amadeus is available at: www.au.amadeus.com.
