Amadeus' Eberhard Haag selected as a Premier 100 IT Leader for 2009 by Computerworld Magazine

Madrid, Spain, January 21, 2009 - Amadeus, a global leader in technology and distribution solutions for the travel and tourism industry, today announced that Eberhard Haag, the company's Executive Vice President of Global Operations and General Manager of Data Processing, has been selected by Computerworld Magazine as a Premier 100 IT Leader for 2009.

The leading source of technology news and information for IT influencers worldwide, U.S.-based Computerworld annually honors 100 IT executives from around the world who have led their organizations in key areas: by mentoring and motivating employees; envisioning innovative solutions to business challenges; and effectively managing and executing IT strategies. The honorees for 2009, including Haag, will be recognized at Computerworld’s Premier 100 IT Leaders Conference held March 1-3, 2009, in Orlando, Fla.

Eberhard Haag is the head of global operations and data processing for Amadeus worldwide. Leading a global operations team of 780 people, he oversees Amadeus’ massive global data processing center in Erding, Germany, which drives the systems and networks for all of Amadeus' technology products and solutions in 217 markets around the world.

Haag spearheaded Amadeus’ eight-year transition from a legacy Transaction Processing Facility (TPF) mainframe environment to a more effective open systems, service-oriented architecture. His leadership has enabled Amadeus to diversify its business and offer more advanced, customer-centric travel applications that meet current needs and anticipate future ones. Haag led his team in shifting over the company’s extreme data processing functions and numerous customer applications to new open architecture. This was achieved without significant impact to Amadeus' customers or core daily business of travel reservations processing, while also improving quality of service in parallel.

“I am honored to accept this recognition from Computerworld and be part of such an impressive group of IT professionals,” said Haag. “However, it is my team at the Amadeus data processing center, that truly deserves the award, which was achieved only through their hard work and dedication, day in and day out.”

Haag added that in terms of travel distribution, Amadeus was the first-mover and has evolved the farthest to future-proof its IT infrastructure. Haag said his data center team stays on the leading edge of IT and is currently focused on key technologies such as implementation of open source software like Linux, MySQL, and JBoss, and virtualization of storage and servers with the objective of building the massive grid for Amadeus' "transaction factory."

This year’s recipients were selected from over 1,000 nominees, who were measured against Computerworld’s IT Leadership Index, a set of characteristics that describes executives who guide the effective use of IT in their organizations, and evaluated by the editors and by a panel of outside judges. The candidates repsenting numerous industries were asked about a range of topics, including their backgrounds, work experiences, special accomplishments and leadership styles. Additional information can be found at www.premier100.com.

“The 2009 Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders, more so than ever before, are making a clean break with traditional IT strategies and roles and creating altogether new ones,” said Scot Finnie, editor-in-chief, Computerworld. “The shell-shocked economy and changing forces in the technology environment are spurring these smart, agile IT leaders to seize new opportunities.”

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Notes to the editors:

A biography for Eberhard Haag is available at: http://www.amadeus.com/amadeus/x7989.html

About Computerworld
Computerworld is the leading source of technology news and information for IT influencers worldwide. Computerworld’s award-winning Web site (www.computerworld.com), weekly publication, focused conference series and custom research form the hub of the world’s largest (40+ edition) global IT media network. In the past five years alone, Computerworld has won more than 100 awards, including Folio Magazine's 2006 Gold EDDIE Award for the best technology/computing magazine, the 2004 and 2006 Magazine of the Year Award, and 2006 Best Overall Web Publication from the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE). In addition, in 2007 Computerworld's then editor in chief Don Tennant received the prestigious Timothy White Award from American Business Media. Computerworld leads the industry with an online audience of over 2 million unique, monthly visitors and a print audience of 1,222,000 readers each week (IntelliQuest CIMS Spring 2007).

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.

Amadeus has central sites in Madrid (Corporate Headquarters & Marketing), Nice (Development) and Erding (Operations – Data Processing Centre) and regional offices in Miami, Buenos Aires and Bangkok. At market level, Amadeus maintains customer operations in 76 countries covering more than 217 markets.

The company is majority owned by WAM Acquisition, whose shareholders are BC Partners, Cinven, Air France, Iberia and Lufthansa. Amadeus employs over 8,600 employees worldwide, representing 105 nationalities.

More information about Amadeus is available at: http://www.amadeus.com

Contact details:

Amadeus
Media Relations / Corporate Marketing
tel : +34 91 582 0160
fax : +34 91 582 0188
e-mail : mediarelations@amadeus.com