This is a roundup of product news and announcements for travel SYSTEMS in tourism and hospitality for May 2014.
Tuesday 27 May 2014:
Amadeus renews IT deal with Al Masaood Travel
- The agreement means Amadeus will provide its e-Travel Management system and Business Management Platform to the UAE-based travel agency. The 45-year-old agency operates throught the Middle East.
eNett launches in Singapore
- The Travelport-PSP International joint venture is introducing the Virtual Account Numbers platform to travel agencies in Singapore following its roll-out around Europe over the past year. VANs are automatically generated, 16-digit Mastercard numbers created for indivudual travel bookings.
Friday 23 May 2014:Egencia launches Intelligent Services Platform (ISP) in Europe
- ISP solution combines call centre services with Egencia's online booking solutions to enable agents to greet incoming callers (Egencia customers) by their name and also access users' current itineraries, past preferences and company travel policies. Egencia will roll out the ISP in nine European cities over the coming weeks: Paris, Marseille, Tourcoing, Lyon, London, Manchester, Munich, Brussels, and Zurich.
Amadeus signs ten year long Altéa agreement with
Swiss Airlines- Swiss International Airlines will be migrating from its existing systems to use Amadeus Altea Suite, to enhance reservation, inventory and departure control system (DCS) processes. Migration to Altéa Reservation and Inventory modules is scheduled for early 2016, and migration to DCS will be by mid of 2016.
Friday 9 May 2014:Concur partners with TripBAM
- Concur has joined forces with tripBAM to enable corporate customers to find better hotel rates by shopping for them in a group or 'cluster' of similarly rated hotels. Bookings can be made in tripBAM or by the corporate's travel management company. TripBAM, (TLabs here) says four of the top 10 US TMCs in North America have started piloting its service in the first quarter of this year.
Amadeus furthers Key partnership
- Amadeus has renewed and extended its deal with Key Travel, a TMC specialising in the non-profit sector. The partnership will see Amadeus supporting Key's growth plans for Europe, the UK and North America. Part of the deal is for Key to be the UK 'driver' for the GDSs new mobile service.
Wednesday 7 May 2014:Sabre wins Air Berlin IT partnership
- The German carrier will shift a variety of services to Sabre including its passenger reservations system, check-in, ecommerce, data and network management. The deployment of the SabreSonic passenger reservation system is slated to begin this summer and take almost two years. Network management tools will be shifted from July this year. Air Berlin previously used Amadeus for some of its IT services.
Tuesday 6 May 2014:OpenTravel Alliance brings in Google and Aer Lingus
- The pair have joined as members in the past few months as the industry group looks to push its OpenTravel 2.0 project, "object-based schema products" which generate standards for web and other services.
Dolphin Dynamics links with
Payment Express- The connection allows agency and operator users to process customer payments electronically, using a dedicated page which integrates into back-office systems.
Monday 5 May 2014:Amadeus to power Southwest domestic reservations
- The US low cost carrier will use the ALTEA reservation system for all domestic operations, extending its existing agreement for Amadeus to power its international ticketing. The agreement follows the acquisition of AirTran and follows "months of due diligence". The ultimate goal is for Amadeus to run a single reservation system across the entire brand. The closure of the AirTran brand will take place in December this year. Sabre currently runs the domestic platform and says, in a statement: "Sabre remains under contract to be compensated through December 31, 2016 for continuing to provide reservations services for all domestic flights."
British Airways and
Iberia pick
Apptio for IT management
- The International Airlines Group (IAG) will use Apptio to measure IT costs and consumption across its various networks and services. The idea is to coordinate better use and management of a myriad of systems from the two main carriers in the group.
NB: Send links or releases for travel devices direct to Tnooz
via email.
NB2: Travel systems image via Shutterstock.