Why airlines around the globe are converting to the cloud [infographic]

Have a look at the infographic to the left to see a timeline of Amadeus in the cloud and to understand in greater detail why so many airlines are converting to the cloud.

So what are the benefits of cloud computing to airlines specifically?

Well for a start, a recent survey suggested that some 93% of all airlines from around the world will have, or plan to have, IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) and virtualisation in place by the end of 2014. So it's obviously a hot topic and something front of mind for IT decision markers within airlines globally.

In line with this, the key reasons for adopting IaaS were listed largely as improved flexibility (81%) and reduced costs (61%).  Interestingly, another piece of recent research suggested that over half of all airlines around the globe have already moved onto new generation IT infrastructure by implementing virtualisation in their own data centres. That figure will become almost universal over the next few years with only 6% of airlines having no plan to migrate at all.

But if we focus on the cost element in particular for a moment, it's clear that airlines, perhaps more than many other businesses, want their IT costs to be variable as their business demands fluctuate.

Airlines using the Amadeus Community Cloud benefit directly from a variable cost model allowing them to pay for what they consume. At the same time, Amadeus runs a transaction business model so airlines’ IT costs are in line with their business volume and therefore revenues. Furthermore, the pooling of IT resources in the data centre, in conjunction with virtualisation, means that IT costs are reduced, when compared to each airline attempting to construct its own data processing facility. Increased flexibility can also be achieved - by delivering software, data processing and IT as a service, Amadeus can in tandem service its customers quickly; effectively connecting and migrating them. Amadeus’ Community Cloud also means that in-house airline IT teams can concentrate on their own strategic initiatives and importantly, benefit from scalability - being able to access additional computing power on request, is of great importance to airlines.