Catering to Chinese carriers’ e-commerce needs

China Special: By EFT Correspondent, recently in Shanghai

Carriers in China have been focusing on expanding their international e-commerce presence in the last couple of years.

And among the established technology and distribution solutions providers, Amadeus has managed to sign mega deals in the same arena. For example, China Eastern Airlines and China Airlines chose the Amadeus e-Travel solution last year.

Providing an insight into the current status, David Brett, President, Amadeus Asia Pacific told EyeforTravel.com’s Ritesh Gupta: “We’ve received very positive feedback from these two particular clients. In fact, shortly after beginning to power China Airlines’ website with the Amadeus e-Retail Engine solution in August 2006, the airline moved on to strengthen its existing distribution agreement with Amadeus, to provide travel agents with increased access to the airline’s hosting system to view booking details and PNR information.”

Brett added, “We’re continuing to explore with them, along with other airlines and potential customers in Greater China, further opportunities for partnership and cooperation.”

On opportunities in a market like China, where there are special market conditions due to regulations limiting ‘foreign’ GDS activities, Brett said that the Asia Pacific region at large is definitely one of company’s main focus areas for 2007 and the coming years.

“China will feature very strongly in our market share growth plans, given its astronomical economic development and rapidly growing tourism market. We are continually engaging in new and existing opportunities in China across all our different lines of business,” he said.

“According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the Chinese civil aviation regulatory body, China’s economy is entering a new phase of growth, bringing more demand for civil aviation with it. With the mainland economy’s Gross Domestic Product growth hitting 8 to 10 per cent annually, we are very likely to see double-digit increases in air traffic,” said Brett. “As a leading global technology partner for the providers, buyers and sellers of travel, Amadeus is well positioned to support Chinese airlines during this period of growth and into the future with our suite of products and solutions that will help them to efficiently manage their booking systems and operational technologies.”

It is being felt that GDS companies have made great infrastructure investments to start capitalising on the Chinese market while waiting for deregulations to be released.

On the same, Brett said, “Talking about the Chinese market, it’s important to note that it is a global one. As the third largest and fastest growing economy on earth, China plays a significant role in all major industries, including travel. Chinese corporations, airlines and agencies operate internationally, just as global entities operate in China.”
   
“In terms of physical presence, Amadeus has offices in China, from which we offer educational and informational sessions to local travel agencies and airlines. Although no foreign GDSs are currently operating in a meaningful way in travel distribution in China, international companies do need to support the needs of the traveller in China,” he said. “As the travel industry becomes increasingly interlinked, demand for information integration rises in China as in the rest of the world. Amadeus, as the technology partner for the travel industry, has already established an extensive infrastructure and a broad range of solutions – apart from our GDS, which is the largest worldwide – to meet this need.”

Citing an example, he said Amadeus has invested €300 million and 3000 man years to develop the Amadeus Altea Airline Suite, a new generation, customer-centric IT platform for airlines.

“Such systems form the core of airlines’ customer handling and management, which still mostly operate on legacy mainframe technologies. Amadeus Altea is the industry’s only open systems solution, and is customer-centric in design, built for the full range of airline business models and allows increased productivity and flexibility.  Its many benefits are already being experienced by more than 150 airlines using Amadeus Altea Reservations, which represent more than half of all passengers traveling on Star Alliance and oneworld carriers and more than a third of passengers traveling on SkyTeam carriers,” he said.

“Furthermore, with Chinese carriers’ continued high volume growth, scalability is another important factor in the success of their core systems. Amadeus operates the industry’s most processing-intensive systems, handling 370 million transactions a day, and growing. We are thus well equipped and positioned to manage the Chinese aviation industry’s transaction volume, which is now growing beyond its current system capabilities.”

(This is the first part of interview with David Brett, President, Amadeus Asia Pacific. The second and final part to be posted soon).