Amadeus continues diversification with acquisition of rail IT company

Amadeus has acquired a controlling interest in Onerail, which provides a suite of technology solutions to the rail industry. The acquisition is a major milestone in Amadeus' strategy to expand its range of technology solutions for its customers in the travel industry.

Bangkok, Thailand (Asia Pacific) 10 June 2008: Amadeus, the leading provider of technology to the travel and tourism industry, has acquired a controlling interest in Onerail, which provides a suite of technology solutions to the rail industry. The acquisition is a major milestone in Amadeus' strategy to expand its range of technology solutions for its customers in the travel industry.

The acquisition allows Amadeus to offer core, next generation technology solutions to help rail companies they become more integrated with air travel. The acquisition adds a fully-integrated inventory, pricing, reservation and distribution system, enabling domestic and international distribution, alongside other forms of transport – such as air or car – to Amadeus' suite of solutions for rail companies. Increasingly, rail companies with long-distance and high-speed routes are building links with airlines, such as code share and interline agreements. This enables trains to play a greater role in an integrated transport network by bringing passengers from secondary towns to major "hub" airports. The high-speed rail network today carries about 400 million passengers and is expected to quadruple in size by 2020 .

The solutions include a fully integrated reservation system which allows rail companies to sell tickets through travel agencies, direct on the internet and from kiosks in trains. The system is more convenient for travellers and more efficient for the rail company. Amadeus can also now offer sophisticated pricing and profiling solutions which allow rail companies to manage fares more efficiently and customers more attentively.

The suite of solutions developed is already being used by train companies in Australia and the UK. The technology developed by Onerail, and which will now be offered by Amadeus, has been instrumental in allowing Onerail's clients to efficiently manage and grow their reservations and offer a better, more flexible service to their customers.

On many business routes rail companies are in direct competition with full service airlines, low-cost carriers and, with rail liberalisation in Europe, foreign rail companies running international routes. In this new, international and competitive environment, rail companies need a technology infrastructure which gives them the flexibility to quickly take advantage of opportunities and circumvent threats.

"We believe that the next generation technology developed by Onerail combined with the world-class data processing and distribution reach of Amadeus is an extremely compelling proposition for the industry," says Philippe Chérèque, Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy, Amadeus, "This allows us to offer massive value to rail companies and, by developing deeper relationships with these vital travel providers, improve our offer to travel agencies and management companies too."

Amadeus began to diversify in earnest in 2000 with the development of a next generation customer management solution for airlines. In 2005 Amadeus acquired Optims, bringing full suite of revenue management, property management and CRS solutions for the hotel industry. The expertise which Optims brought to Amadeus is being used to develop a new-generation centralised distribution platform for the hotel industry. The 2006 acquisition of TravelTainment provided the organisational and technical platform for Amadeus to take its leisure technology to a global market. In 2006 Amadeus marked the diversification by changing its legal name to Amadeus IT Group.

Onerail is based in Sydney and Toronto.