Blog

Driving business transformation with modern airline retailing: Insights from Amadeus Altitude 25

February 24, 2025
4 min read
Cyril Tetaz on colorful stage at Altitude event, with big audience in front.
Cyril Tetaz
Cyril Tetaz
Executive Vice President, Airline Solutions, Travel unit, Amadeus
Share it!

Amadeus Altitude is our flagship event for airlines. It’s a global forum where the cumulative knowledge and expertise of airlines, Amadeus and partners drive insight and action to solve the challenges of today and tomorrow.


Amadeus Altitude 25 was a one-of-a-kind opportunity, bringing together stakeholders from across the travel ecosystem, to explore the accelerating transition to modern airline retailing.


The city was the perfect host. With such a rich history of openness to the world, of travel and discovery, the Portuguese capital reminds us of what is so special about our industry.


As the dust settles, I would like to take a moment to share key takeaways from the event – and the role Amadeus can play in the industry transformation, bringing the next-generation of airline technology to life.

Changing traveler expectations are creating new opportunities

When we look at consumer trends around the world, we see clear expectations from the traveler to do things differently. Digital-native retailers have set the benchmark for customer engagement and the bar is only going to get higher.

Travelers now expect travel players to understand their existing relationship with travel sellers and providers, their preferences, and the context of each trip. They expect us to shape offers for them personally and make journeys simpler, from browsing to boarding – including at times of disruption. They expect us to take the pain out of payment.


As we work to address the challenges these expectations create, it is important to remember this trend also opens up opportunities for airlines to increase customer satisfaction, capture more revenue and differentiate from competitors.


This is why we see our role at Amadeus as helping airlines become better retailers – across all the processes we power. This is a moment to be seized.

Learn more about Digital Transformation in the Airline industry.

Cloud technology will be vital

How have we been working to address these changes?


First of all, we have accelerated our move to the cloud – we are making significant progress and have now migrated more than 50% of our applications to the public cloud.


This is a prerequisite to enable more modularity, scalability and localization across our portfolio. The move brings more transparency, resilience and security. It creates a common framework to manage our partners, data and events across applications and the wider travel ecosystem.


The transition to the cloud creates more openness, better integration and easier customization, leveraging API extensibility and faster access to AI capabilities.

Next-generation technology from Amadeus

Built on these foundations, Amadeus has unveiled two next-generation suites of solutions for our industry. Following the launch of Amadeus Nevio for full-service carriers (FSCs) in 2023, in November 2024, we launched Navitaire Stratos , our integrated retailing solution designed mainly for low-cost carriers (LCCs). We are currently working on synergies between Amadeus Nevio and Navitaire Stratos, leveraging a common technology framework to help FSCs better sell and service customers when partnering with LCCs.


Today, we have a large team of experts working on Amadeus Nevio, working to put travelers at the heart of our ecosystem, building better experiences for all. At the same time, we continue investing in Altéa and transversal solutions.


The message from Altitude 25 is that we have moved from vision to action as we start delivering on modern airline retailing, optimized payments and efficient delivery management, including service recovery. It was great to welcome Air France-KLM to Amadeus Nevio during the event, with Angus Clarke, Chief Commercial Officer also agreeing a new partnership.


Air France-KLM joins our existing partners – including British Airways, Finnair and Saudia – that are now beginning to realize opportunities to drive revenue growth and reduce complexity and costs.

Our commitment to our partners

This is our vision: to support airlines as they work to become more effective retailers, deliver better traveler experiences, and leverage the best of modern technology.


We help airlines change at their pace, focusing on their priorities, while smoothly managing the transition and ensuring business continuity.


What comes next? Let me reiterate our event theme for Altitude 25:


It’s your world. Transform it.

Videos

TO TOP

TO TOP