Back to Air Transport IT Review - Issue 1, April 2009

Delivering next generation passenger management

SITA's major investment in next generation passenger management services focuses on new value-add solutions while migrating existing reservations, inventory, ticketing and departure control solutions to a modern platform. Announced in November 2007 and building on the Horizon portfolio, the programme is producing its first deliverables.

Initial elements include the recent launch of SITA Marketplace-Air, with S7 Airlines as its first customer. This provides access to a robust source of multi-carrier inventory for sale through an airline's own reservation agents, online bookers as well as partner travel distributors equipped with access to SITA Reservations.

More is on the way as momentum gathers pace. There are now over 100 personnel working in a dedicated environment on the Horizon project, with additional resources through offshore partners. Technology partnerships have been established with key suppliers and the framework is in place to provide flexible Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for the new platform.

According to Brian Cook, SITA's VP Airline and Passenger Solutions, the commitment is for innovative passenger management solutions for the long term - across a spectrum of sizes and business models.

"This commitment has been recognized by Malaysia Airlines," says Cook. "The airline brought forward the retirement of its in-house reservations system and implementation of SITA's next generation reservations and inventory systems. It was a clear demonstration of the 14 million passenger airline's confidence in the future of our passenger management programme."

Airline revenue generation

One objective of the next generation programme is to expand the scope for airline revenue generation through the sale of ancillary products and services across all distribution channels.

SITA Marketplace-Air is the first phase of this initiative. Subsequent phases, in development now, include improved abilities for airlines to sell components such as hotel, car, and insurance. These complement the air sale, attract additional revenues and strengthen the customer's relationship with the airline.

Increased intelligence

A key goal of SITA's next generation passenger management programme is solutions that deliver better airline business performance. New functionality will be released shortly to provide airlines with increased intelligence on the passenger. This will include their entire history as a customer, enabling airlines to fine tune customer relationship programmes.

The development is part of SITA's complete redesign of core functions to take full advantage of the latest technologies and the opportunity for direct sales and service in a fully mobile world.

Distribution's role in transforming the airline business

Distribution occupies a unique position at the heart of the airline's commercial enterprise. With wise management it can transform the airline's performance.

But airlines face challenges in using their technology systems to achieve improved business performance. Distribution helps us to be profitable by determining what inventory is being released, to which markets, at what price and through which channels. We have to look at this as an end-to-end process and not, as is often the case, as disparate steps.

Information is needed to make these decisions and a number of tools help us find the necessary data. The challenge is that the data we need sits in different systems - Revenue Accounting, Reservations, or e-ticketing databases. For some airlines, system connectivity for real time access is not always possible and collaboration between airline departments has never been established. Clearly, barriers to distribution control exist within the airline, and also within the industry as a whole.

The starting point is to equip the airline with better end-to-end solutions and improve collaboration around those IT solutions within the airline. That's not all. IT suppliers need to engage with the entire airline community to resolve common problems.

This is where SITA comes in. SITA is owned by the industry. Our agenda in airline distribution is simply to serve airlines' best interests. SITA alone is not the answer, however. We need the support of the airlines and other organizations, such as IATA.

For distribution to enable real transformation, we need to work together as an industry and community to bring about the changes needed to help airlines regain control of the way that their product reaches the market - to help them make profits and take back control of product distribution.

Brian Cook, Vice President, Airline and Passenger Solutions, SITA

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