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As Amadeus celebrated last month 25 years of service with products and solutions that help the industry’s professionals to manage their business efficiently and profitably, David Brett, President Amadeus Asia Pacific, explains how Amadeus has been successful in Asia.
What is the difference between Asia and the Western World when it comes to IT use in travel?
David Brett– Asia Pacific has a younger population than in the western world. This means that new ideas are getting around easier. Mobiles are for example more important here than in Europe. Of course, we are not into a business of B2C but we provide the right tools to airlines or other travel industry components to catch up with all those trends seeing today. We occupy the middle space between travel agents, airlines and consumers and we are here to facilitate travel distribution.
What has been the biggest change over the last decade?
David Brett– The biggest is into the use of IT for the travel and aviation industry. For example in the past, all airlines had their own house-developed IT system. IT was by then a limiting factor to build up a strategy. Marketing people had to always ask the IT department to seek if implementing their ideas was possible. IT turned now into a liberating factor as we developed IT-solutions which are users’ friendly. Integration is today’s key to success.
Can you give us an example of the way Amadeus simplifies business?
David Brett– We work a lot in airport’s IT. We developed the Altéa Suite, which enables airlines to seamlessly manage their customers from their shopping experience to check-in. Over 115 carriers have selected the full Amadeus Altéa suite, including leading Asian carriers such as Garuda Indonesia, Thai Airways, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Korean Air or Asiana. As they all have the same platform, it is easier to create an airport(s management platform which will integrate all the components of the travel. This is what we intend to do in Singapore where we migrated some 400 different programs into our own system. With 80% of flying carriers into Singapore using Amadeus platforms, we can now create a unique integrated airport’s management system which looks after all passengers.
How did you adapt to low cost carriers requests?
David Brett– it is true that at the beginning, IT solutions for full service carriers and low cost carriers differed. Full service carriers are more complex as they need to implement solutions for global connections while LCC mostly concentrate on point to point traffic and the customer. However, this is changing. LCC are more mature those days and we see an increasing demand for a product which can be distributed through travel agencies. Airlines such as Air Asia or Tiger/Scoot work increasingly on connecting flights’ solutions for example. As LCC become more hybrid, we offer an innovative solution, Amadeus LCC Smart, which allows travel agencies to easily book LCC content using a web-like interface in the Amadeus global distribution system. Amadeus LCC Smart optimises workflow for travel agents with LCC website interface, but without the need to learn different commands or leave the Amadeus Selling Platform.We have been working very well with AirAsia on Amadeus LCC Smart. We also propose to make LCA available for users of Amadeus e-Travel Management (AeTM), our online multi global distribution system. The system was recently selected by India’s low cost SpiceJet.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
