Amadeus signs up SAA
Leading GDS Amadeus said that South African Airways was the latest carrier to sign a letter of intent for its new generation of customer management systems.
The portfolio consists of Altea Sell for sales and reservations, Altea Plan for inventory control and Altea Fly for departure control.
The systems were developed by Amadeus, BA and the Australian carrier Qantas to replace technology that was up to 30 years old.
Qantas has become the first airline to adopt fully Altea Plan after four months of testing. BA is expected to adopt the system in 2005. Other customers include Finnair and the German low cost carrier dba.
Fiona Balfour, Qantas's chief information officer and executive general manager said Altea Plan “was a remarkable step forward that provided ‘the new heart' for the airline's inventory management systems.”
Shangri-La looks to Europe
Far East luxury hotel chain Shangri-La is searching for properties in London, Paris and Frankfurt, its chief marketing officer Martin Waechter said.
He said the chain wanted properties with about 100- 120 rooms, smaller than the hotels in the Far East which often had more than 500 bedrooms and hoped they would be open by 2008.
Mr Waechter said the group, which has 44 properties throughout Asia and the Pacific Rim, was also looking for properties in Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Amadeus to review pricing
Amadeus will announce a new pricing structure in the near future, David Jones, its vice president commercial told a conference at the WTM.
Mr Jones said that through Amadeus' “one booking fee approach” it was hiding what it had to offer.
He said he was “delighted” to see others looking at value pricing and said Amadeus would also be studying it as a way of being more cost effective.
Mr Jones who said that distribution in the industry was going through a state of change would be announcing its plans shortly.