Qantas is the first airline to complete migration to the full Amadeus Altéa Customer Management Solution

• The Altéa suite allows the carrier to reduce costs, improve operational efficiency and build customer loyalty through a consistently responsive service

Madrid, Spain, 09 October, 2008: Today, Amadeus, a global leader in technology and distribution solutions for the travel and tourism industry, announced Qantas is now using the full Amadeus Altéa Customer Management System to manage its entire sales, reservations, inventory and departure control functions. The recent migration of the carrier to the new check-in and flight boarding system, Altéa Departure Control – Customer, is an unprecedented milestone in the industry and makes Qantas the first to become fully operational on the entire Altéa platform.

For the first time, the passenger processing system of a major carrier is now hosted on new generation technology, allowing Qantas, its passengers and check-in agents to benefit from a single view of all passenger details at every touchpoint. Qantas representatives are now uniquely positioned to provide an intelligent and intuitive customer experience to passengers including consistently personalised service and speedier check-in. Using a new user interface, which replaces the cryptic screen, check-in staff are now prompted with the latest intelligence to decide whether to offer passengers priority boarding, flow-forward to earlier flights, chosen seat preferences, upgrades or re-accommodate passengers in real-time when necessary.

According to Qantas Chief Information Officer, Jamila Gordon: “Our partnership with Amadeus has been instrumental in the wholesale modernisation of our customer management system and the successful cutover to the new departure control module is the culmination of many years of work and investment on both sides. Exceptional customer service is a key competitive weapon and you can only deliver this by understanding the needs of individuals, which is what the integrated Altéa system provides.”

Ms Gordon continued: “As the operating environment for airlines gets tougher, it is essential that technology is able to both deliver greater operational efficiency as well as support the implementation of policies that build customer loyalty and drive increased revenues.”

According to David Jones, Executive Vice President Commercial, Amadeus: “This is a significant milestone not only for Amadeus and Qantas but for the industry as a whole. The Altéa solution is the industry’s leading customer management system transforming how airlines manage passengers. It is proving instrumental in helping carriers build real competitive advantage in today’s market. By adopting Altéa CMS, Qantas has a platform that is robust and agile enough to underpin the dynamic commercial strategies needed to survive and thrive in today’s fiercely competitive market.”

Qantas’ recent migration to the new departure control system can bring benefit to the airline from significant cost and time savings in three ways: lower maintenance costs from the replacement of expensive and difficult to maintain legacy systems; quicker staff adoption thanks to an intuitive check-in agent interface, and the automation of many functions, including seat planning and boarding gate configuration, which were previously done manually. For the traveller, this translates into a greatly improved check-in experience and positive impact on their satisfaction and loyalty.

Almost 800 people were on the core departure control migration project team on both sides and over 6,000 check-in agents were trained across 71 airports.

Qantas has worked with Amadeus since 2000 when the initial IT partnership contract was signed. Qantas migrated to the Altéa Reservation system in 2002 and was the launch customer for the Altéa Inventory system in 2004. In 2007 Qantas was the launch customer for Altéa Departure Control - Flight Management, a weight and balance system. Also in 2007, the carrier signed a 10-year agreement to promote further technology partnership with Amadeus.

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Notes to the editors

Key Departure Control (check-in and flight boarding) migration statistics

• Period: 10 May - 7 October, 2008
• Number of terminals impacted: 80+
• Number of departures: 49,000+
• Number of passengers processed: About 5.6million


About Qantas
Qantas is the world's second oldest airline. It was founded in the Queensland outback in 1920 and is Australia's largest domestic and international airline. Qantas is recognised as one of the world's leading long distance airlines, having pioneered services from Australia to North America and Europe. The Qantas Group employs approximately 31,000 staff across a network that serves 143 destinations in 36 countries – 57 in Australia and 86 in other countries (including codeshare services) in Australia, Asia and the Pacific, the Americas, Europe and Africa.

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. Amadeus maintains customer operations in 76 countries covering more than 217 markets. Amadeus employs over 8,500 employees worldwide, representing 95 nationalities.

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


Press Contacts

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

Qantas
Corporate Communication
Lloyd Quartermaine
Tel: +61 2 969 4058