Amadeus launches low fare Web search engine

MADRID -- Amadeus has announced the launch of Master Pricer with the claim that it is the first online, low fare search engine that consistently covers worldwide itineraries. Master Pricer is designed to respond to the needs of large-scale travel portals operating in a highly competitive and increasingly price sensitive online marketplace.

"Solutions available in the market today can offer advanced low fare search only for North American domestic flights. Amadeus has now extended this functionality to the worldwide marketplace, and to US consumers traveling internationally," said Claude Giafferri, vice president of product management for Amadeus.

Based on open technology, Master Pricer brings reach, speed, flexibility and quality to low fare search, Giafferri said. He cites a recent independent, third party study by Topaz International of online travel sites that the Master Pricer pilot site, CheapSeats.com, consistently had the lowest available international fares versus top Internet travel sites Orbitz, Expedia, and Travelocity. (TOPAZ International is an airfare auditing, benchmarking, and statistical information firm specializing in the use of knowledge and technology to reduce travel costs for businesses.)

Integrated with Amadeus

"Master Pricer is fully integrated with Amadeus and uses the same processes and data as in the core reservation system, unlike the stand-alone low fare search engines available today," Giaferri said. "This guarantees full data integrity and synchronization with the reservation process, avoiding the inconsistencies and errors which have often characterized low fare online booking to date." Such portals need to constantly offer competitive low fare proposals to drive traffic to their sites, he said.

Among the features of Master Pricer as announced by Amadeus are:

▪ Master Pricer enables web sites to display the lowest available air fares on any route, combining domestic and international legs.
▪ For travelers who demand flexibility with their travel dates and itinerary, Master Pricer offers powerful search options including extension of search to alternate dates and airports.
▪ Master Pricer returns, in a single shot, hundreds of bookable itineraries, from which the traveler can select the best option.

Master Pricer is available through the Amadeus Application Programming Interface (API), which supports XML (eXtensible Markup Language), facilitating easy integration for travel websites. e-Travel, the online travel technology business unit of Amadeus, will also offer Master Pricer in its flagship solution, e-Travel Planitgo, in the second quarter of 2003. Master Pricer is currently available in the US and will be deployed worldwide this year.

Through the Amadeus GDS, travel agencies and airline offices are able to make bookings with 472 airlines, representing more than 95 per cent of the world's scheduled airline seats. The system also provides access to 59,640 hotels, 48 car rental companies serving some 24,000 locations, and other provider groups including: ferry; rail; cruise; insurance and tour operators.

The Amadeus GDS data processing center serves 60,212 travel agency locations and more than 9,700 airline sales offices, which together total more than 260,000 points of sale located in over 200 markets worldwide.

Finnair joins Amadeus

Last week, Amadeus announced that Finnair will be the third airline to transfer its inventory, departure control and load control systems to Amadeus' New Generation IT platform, joining launch customers and fellow oneworld alliance members, British Airways and Qantas. The 10 year agreement underscores Amadeus' capacity and commitment to become the IT provider of choice for the airline industry. Delivery of Finnair's new systems is scheduled for 2005.

"Our business strategy lies in the use of smart and innovative technology to increase productivity, reduce costs and enhance our capability to meet new business challenges," said Tom Källström, vice president of corporate eBusiness and new ventures for Finnair. "The Amadeus New Generation IT platform, with its open architecture, allows us to tailor-make specific solutions while maximizing economies of scale. Its integrated and customizable processes help us to better address our fluctuating needs and to create a cost structure that is more predictable and adjustable."

Finnair, the national carrier of Finland and one of the world's longest established airlines, has a route network that covers over 50 international destinations and 21 destinations within Finland. The airline also owns 95 per cent of the Amadeus national marketing company (NMC), which is the local distributor of the GDS' products and services to the travel agency community in the Finnish market.

Finnair is considered a pioneer in its field in exploiting e-commerce and has developed a number of Internet and mobile telephone based services. By 2006 Finnair estimates that most of the company's sales will be generated via the Internet and that more than half of the passengers will be using Internet services, from making their ticket reservations to clearing check-in. In 2002, Finnair was awarded the WITSA (World IT and Services Alliance) Excellence Award for its eGate product and the Airline Business magazine Airline Strategy Award for Technology.

Amadeus is headquartered in Madrid, Spain, and quoted on the Madrid, Paris and Frankfurt stock exchanges. For the year ended 31 December 2001, the company reported revenues of EUR 1,785.1m and net income of EUR 132.7m. The Amadeus data centre is in Erding (near Munich), Germany and its principal development offices are located in Sophia Antipolis (near Nice), France. The company has some 4,200 employees worldwide.