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In a move to improve passengers’ ability to
shop, book and manage their journey and enhance airlines’ direct
relationship with their passengers, air transport IT specialist,
SITA, has partnered Datalex, a provider of travel distribution
software and solutions.
The two companies co-operated to launch SITA’s
new Horizon E-Commerce platform, which provides a sophisticated
airline sales and service portal. This technology allows airlines
to drive their direct distribution strategies by enabling them to
offer new shopping and merchandising features directly online.
Passengers are increasingly taking control of
managing their journey and demand always-on, anywhere access to
search, reserve and manage their travel including flights,
optional services, checking-in, making car hire and hotel
reservations as well as altering their bookings if required.
According to the 2012 SITA/Airline Business Airline IT Trends
Survey, almost all airlines now sell tickets through their web
sites and over 70% also sell ancillary services. Within three
years this is forecast to increase to over 90%.
Horizon E-Commerce is used by more than 30
airlines worldwide and with the newly updated sales and service
portal they can now meet changing passenger demands.
The updated
portal works in real time to provide flexible searching and suggests relevant offers to passengers by continually monitoring
their input into an airline’s website. Passengers will be able to
see the right fare at the right time and are able to purchase all
their travel requirements in one place.
They will also be able to shop
not only by origin and destination but also by calendar, their
desired experience, travel budget, or by using a map. In addition,
they can purchase all their travel requirements, including car
hire, insurance and hotel reservation in one transaction.
Allison O’Neill, Vice President Passenger
Solutions, SITA, said, “Airlines will enhance their relationship with their
passengers who will be able to book directly with the airline
rather than through travel agents or Global Distribution Systems
(GDSs). In addition, airlines will be able to increase revenues
through sales of optional services such as baggage, seat
assignments and also through ancillary services such as car hire,
hotels and insurance. Horizon E-Commerce enables airlines to offer
more services to customers, more channels to deliver their business, more intelligence to understand their business, greater
efficiency and lower cost.”
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More to come...
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