Migrates to Amadeus’ Altea IT suite:

SriLankan to modernize fleet

M F Jabir

SriLankan Airlines (UL) was contemplating a phase replacement of six of its aging aircraft in a major fleet modernization drive, said Kapila Chandrasena Director/Chief Executive Officer SriLankan Airlines addressing the media at the agreement signing ceremony in Colombo held between SriLankan and Amadeus to migrate UL into Amadeus’ full Altea suite by 2014.

He said a part of the capital infusion of US $ 500 million sanctioned by the government would be used for this purpose and modern wide bodied,long haul next generation aircraft would be added to the fleet from the end of 2014 and the phase replacement would go on for the next five to 10 years.

He said this move was necessary considering the expansion in the global travel market particularly the Asia Pacific region which would occupy 31 % of the global travel market by 2031. He said with joining oneworld, the current 60 destinations of UL would grow to 860 and the fleet modernization drive would facilitate that requirement.

Meanwhile SriLankan Airlines, and the Amadeus IT Group, inked the landmark agreement on Thursday that will see the airline migrate to Amadeus’ full Altea suite by 2014 .

The deal, which is the first of its kind for Amadeus in the Indian subcontinent, will enable both SriLankan Airlines and its sister airline Mihin Lanka, to adopt Amadeus’ next generation IT suite to manage its mission-critical reservations, ticketing, inventory and departure control processes.

At the same time, the agreement between SriLankan and Amadeus will help facilitate the airline’s entry into the oneworld global alliance. Currently Amadeus is the standard IT platform for the alliance with more than half of the members of oneworld adopting the Amadeus Altea suite to date.

Under the term of the agreement the two companies will work in close co-operation to being the migration process from SriLankan’s existing passenger service system to Altea, with the first phase of the migration, covering the reservations, inventory and ticketing modules, scheduled to be completed this year. Migration to the Altea departure control system is planned to commence in the first half of 2014.

The agreement with SriLankan follows a period of sustained success for Amadeus and its Altea suite across Asia Pacific in particular in 2012, when contracts were agreed with Garuda Indonesia and EVA Air. Most recently Amadeus has also successfully migrated Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines to Altea, with Garuda scheduled to migrate later in 2013.

Chandrasena added, “Implementing Amadeus Altea suite is crucial to be evolution and expansion of SriLankan Airlines and our inclusion within the oneworld global alliance. The Altea suite will truly modernise our IT processes, enhancing our service provision, whilst enabling us to become a more ‘customer-centric’ carrier than ever before. This agreements is highly significant for our employees, passengers and partners.”

David Brett, President Amadeus Asia Pacific said, “As an ever grater number of people fly from and within Asia Pacific destinations, whether they’re first-time leisure travellers of seasoned business travellers, their demands and expectations are going to increase accordingly.

Amadeus’ strategic direction is to provide the solutions airlines require to met the current and future requirements of an increasingly discerning and demanding travelling public. This also includes helping airlines run as efficiently as possible while maintaining high levels of customer service. We’re delighted to support SriLankan Airlines as one of the most progressive Airlines in the region.”

Amadeus’ Altea suite is used by over 120 Airlines globally.