Amadeus e-Travel Management (Aergo) to offer direct links to Europcar

Madrid, Spain, 31 March 2006: Amadeus, a global leader in technology and distribution solutions for the travel and tourism industry, today announced it has reached agreements with Europcar to offer direct links from Amadeus e-Travel Management (Aergo) thus enhancing the content offer already available through the self booking solution. The new functionality is called “e-Direct Connect for Cars”.

“With this functionality corporations retain access to the full range of content and pricing, the booking is seamlessly integrated with the TMC’s back office, and they have all the benefits that go with having a direct link to the car rental company,” explains Jérôme Destors, Commercial Director, Amadeus e-Travel.

Corporations signing up to ”e-Direct Connect for cars” will benefit from the following features:

• Integrated shopping basket experience including direct car reservations along with flight, hotel and rail services
• Seamless connectivity to the inventory and rates of the content provider of their choice
• Multiple parallel direct links search
• Access to airport and non-airport car office locations
• Direct invoicing via unique billing reference number
• PNR integration on a range of travel distribution systems

Travel Management Companies will be able to offer all these features to their corporate customers and will be able to view the bookings made by their customers via the direct link.

“Europcar is the recognized technology leader in the car rental industry. With the direct link solution to Amadeus e-Travel Management we demonstrate again our commitment to make the booking process for business travellers fast and easy and to improve our services – yet another contribution to the objectives of our Global Quality Strategy. Corporations using this solution will have the highest connectivity and access level to our inventory and rates,” states Rafael Girona, COO Europcar International.

Driving down travel costs and making the booking process simpler and more convenient for business travellers, Amadeus e-Travel Management (Aergo) also offers corporations:

• Flexibility to access content from the distribution system of the corporation’s choosing.
• Direct links to more than 70 low cost carriers web sites, seamlessly integrating the search, selection and booking
• Direct access to local rail content, including SNCF, Eurostar, Thalys, Deutsche Bahn and Swedish Rail.
• The ability for travellers to make side-by-side comparisons between web, scheduled air fares and rail travel options and book based on whether price, flexibility or schedule are key.
• An enhanced online administration function, which enables travel managers to ensure travel policies are optimised in real-time to deliver the maximum savings according to companies’ evolving travel policy. Thanks to an integrated reporting tool, all booking data is available to travel managers for analysis, reporting of travel spend and travel policy compliance and employee tracking.

About Europcar
Europcar is represented in 143 countries with more than 2,825 rental stations and operates a fleet of over 200,000 vehicles throughout Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean. Further information is available under www.europcar.com, at your travel agency or through any Europcar call centre.

About Amadeus
Amadeus is the chosen technology partner for providers, sellers, and buyers of travel. The company provides distribution, IT and point-of-sale solutions to help its customers adapt, grow and succeed in the fast changing travel industry. Customer groups include travel providers (airlines, hotels, car rental companies, railway companies, ferry lines, cruise lines, insurance companies and tour operators), travel sellers (travel agencies) and travel buyers (corporations and travellers). Solutions are grouped in four solution categories – Distribution & Content, Sales & e-Commerce, Business Management and Services & Consulting.

The company is owned by WAM Acquisition, whose shareholders are BC Partners, Cinven, Air France, Iberia and Lufthansa. Amadeus employs over 6,500 employees worldwide, representing 95 nationalities. For the six months ended 30 June 2005, Amadeus reported revenues of €1,226.1m and net income of €154.2m.

Solutions for Corporations
Amadeus is the global leader in online travel technology and corporate travel management solutions. It services travel agencies in 90 countries, and powers the websites of over 1,000 corporations and more than 70 airlines and hotels. Amadeus e-Travel Management (Aergo) is an online travel booking solution to help corporations manage their travel programme more efficiently. Both Amadeus and its partners enable corporations to integrate all the elements of their global travel programmes, into one easy-to-use and easy-to-administrate solution. Customers include Altria, Cemex, Daimler Chrysler, Ericsson, Nestlé, Oracle and Siemens.

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