Category Archives: Technology

Etihad Airways officially inaugurated the latest aircraft in its journey towards sustainability, with the pioneering 2020 ecoDemonstrator entering commercial service following a series of industry-leading test flights across the United States. The aircraft, a brand-new Boeing 787-10 registered A6-BMI, is the latest arrival to Etihad’s 39-strong fleet of 787 Dreamliners, making the UAE national airline one of the world’s largest operators of the technologically advanced aircraft type. Tony Douglas, Group Chief Executive Officer, Etihad Aviation Group, said: “As the first 787-10 to take part in the ecoDemonstrator programme, this very special aircraft stands testament to the innovation and drive for sustainable aviation that forms a core element of Etihad’s values and long-term vision. This is in line with the tremendous strides being made by Abu Dhabi, and the UAE, in the research and development of viable solutions to combat climate change. “Etihad’s partnership with Boeing, and participation in the programme with NASA and Safran, is one the UAE’s national airline is incredibly proud of. This exciting and progressive programme will have a real-world impact on our industry as part of Etihad’s GreenlinerProgramme and demonstrates Etihad’s ambitious sustainability strategy. As a prime example of industry collaboration, this aircraft is a unique example of how the aviation industry can come together for a more sustainable future.” “Boeing’s partnership with Etihad Airways on this year’s ecoDemonstrator program elevated the strategic sustainability alliance we formed last year to a whole new level,” said Stan Deal, Boeing Commercial Airplanes president and CEO. “Collaborations like these are invaluable to accelerate innovation that further enhances the safety and sustainability of flying. The testing we conducted, in partnership with NASA and Safran Landing Systems, will benefit aviation and …

Gulf Air is adding new capabilities in partnership with Amadeus, in addition to the distribution and loyalty technology it uses today, in order to better meet the needs of travellers. The sheer number of travel options and fares available can be overwhelming to consumers. That’s why Amadeus and Gulf Air have joined forces to help travellers and travel professionals more easily match the right product offer to the right customer. Amadeus Airline Fare Families enables airlines to showcase the full value of their travel offers, allowing travel professionals to easily view all possible options. This includes the details of services included in a fare or offered at a charge, as well as the applicable fare conditions. For travel retailers using Amadeus technology, a unique, proactive upgrade facility will help drive revenues for both the travel agency and Gulf Air and enable customers to enjoy the flexibility and comfort that is important to them. Vincent Coste, Chief Commercial Officer, Gulf Air, comments, “Our partnership with Amadeus is going from strength to strength. We are pleased to extend our existing cooperation to include Amadeus Airline Fare Families and Amadeus Rich Merchandising. We are proud of the products and service we provide, and this technology will enable us to better showcase our differentiated offer to our customers. As travelers return to the skies, we are confident that these technologies will help drive even greater customer satisfaction.” Maher Koubaa, Executive Vice President, Airlines, Middle East, Turkey & Africa, Amadeus adds, “Gulf Air is a valued and longstanding customer, and we already work closely on a number of strategic areas including distribution and customer loyalty. With so much choice and innovation taking place in the …

Sabre Corporation announced that Gulf Air, the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain, has recently implemented Sabre’s branded fares technology – enhanced merchandising capabilities that allow travel agents using the Sabre global distribution system (GDS) to access the full breadth of airlines’ branded fares. With this implementation, agents can now easily view, compare and sell Gulf Air’s ‘Boutique’ fare family across the network, offering their customers greater choice and personalisation at better value. “With Sabre’s branded fares, airlines can go beyond the basic fare rules,” said Dino Gelmetti, Vice President EMEA, Sabre Travel Solutions.  “They can package additional benefits and features, such as additional air miles, seat selection, checked baggage and other services, with the goal of providing their customers better flexibility and greater value.  The ability to cater to and personalise these demands will enhance travellers’ experiences and drive revenue for airlines.” Gulf Air has introduced a new price concept for all destinations effective 20 October 2020, which travel agents can book through Sabre’s GDS.  With three economy class and two Falcon Gold class fare options, customers will be able to enjoy more choice when booking their flights. By marketing its “Boutique” fares through Sabre, Gulf Air will be giving its customers more control over their travel experiences, paying for the services that best meet their needs. “We recognise that many travellers today consider the overall value of a ticket, rather than just the price alone – and this means different things to different people,” said Vincent Costa, Chief Commercial Officer, Gulf Air.  “While we continue to offer increased benefits across our fares, we also need to be able to cater to specific traveller demands. With Sabre, we …

Sojern announced the addition of metasearch to its multichannel digital marketing platform designed for hotels, attractions and destinations. Now travel marketers can access all major digital marketing channels from a single provider: metasearch, display, native, video, connected TV, search, and social. For more than a decade Sojern has built tools to help customers drive more direct bookings to their websites. Underpinned by proprietary data science and machine learning technology, Sojern’s Traveller Platform leverages travel data sourced from thousands of partners around the globe to provide unprecedented insight into the traveller path to purchase. This information is then used to optimise digital marketing campaigns in real time to reach travellers in the right channel at the right time. “Like everyone in travel, Sojern was significantly impacted by COVID-19. It hasn’t exactly been ‘down time’ for us, but we used the past few months to focus our business strategy and double-down on what’s working: building a robust suite of solutions to drive bookings for hotels, attractions and destinations,” said Kurt Weinsheimer, Chief Solutions Officer. “Putting it simply: We built the most intelligent multichannel digital marketing platform for travel in existence today.” “We believe travel will come back even stronger than before, so we’re investing now to make sure we can be the best partner to our customers worldwide long after the pandemic has ended,” said Goulden.

Sabre Corporation announced that Sabre and Google are developing an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven technology platform that is an industry first in travel. The technology, known as Sabre Travel AI TM, is infused with Google’s state-of-the-art AI technology and advanced machine-learning capabilities that will help customers to deliver highly relevant and personalised content more quickly, deliver personalised content that better meets the demands of today’s traveller, and create expanded revenue and margin growth opportunities. The Company is integrating Sabre Travel AI into certain products in its existing portfolio, with plans to bring those to market in early 2021. “Sabre Travel AI is a game-changer. We are proud to be working with Google to build technologies that will seek to re-define the way travel companies do business, and turn the insights derived from analyses into repeatable, scalable operations. The development of Sabre Travel AI marks a milestone in our technology transformation and a significant step toward achieving our 2025 vision of personalised retailing,” said Sundar Narasimhan, president of Sabre Labs. “With the creation of Sabre Travel AI, we are rebuilding our platform on cloud-native, data-driven technology that can be integrated into the existing and future products that Sabre offers. We are combining Google Cloud’s infrastructure, AI and machine-learning capabilities with Sabre’s deep travel domain knowledge to create, not next, but third-generation solutions that we believe are smarter, faster and more cost-effective – a first-of-its kind in travel.”

Emirates has launched an integrated biometric path at Dubai International airport (DXB). The contactless airport experience is now open to Emirates passengers travelling from and through Dubai. The integrated biometric path will give passengers a seamless travel journey from specific check-in to boarding gates, improving customer flow through the airport with less document checks and less queuing. Utilising the latest biometric technology – a mix of facial and iris recognition, Emirates passengers can now check in for their flight, complete immigration formalities, enter the Emirates Lounge, and board their flights, simply by strolling through the airport. The various touchpoints in the Biometric path allow for a hygienic contactless travel journey, reducing human interaction and putting emphasis on health and safety. Adel Al Redha, Emirates’ Chief Operating Officer said, “We have always focused on providing a great customer experience at any touchpoint and now it is more vital than before to make use of technology and implement products, and introduce processes that focuses not only on fast tracking customers, but more importantly on health and safety during their travel journey. The state-of-the-art, contactless biometric path is the latest in a series of initiatives we have introduced to make sure that travelling on Emirates is a seamless journey and gives customers added peace of mind.”

Marriott International’s commitment to Clean and Global Cleanliness Council, Marriott has introduced digital content about redefined processes and reimagined spaces guided by cleanliness experts and best practices to help hosts, organisers and attendees plan and execute meetings and connect with confidence. Recognised as an industry leader for quality and exacting standards for over 93 years, Marriott is introducing changes which include enhanced sanitation guidelines, new operational training for associates, and increased use of conference technologies to ensure that customers are able to come together when they are ready. Meeting planners may now reference a series of new materials including customer stories and resources that provide additional context and information for designing successful events in the current environment. Available on MarriottBonvoyEvents.com, these tools illustrate Marriott’s approach to delivering high-quality meeting experiences across its full portfolio of hotels and resorts. “Our Commitment to Clean is guiding everything from how we keep our guests and associates safe to how we begin to welcome back event and meetings business across Europe, Middle East & Africa,” said Neal Jones, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, Marriott International, EMEA. “Our Global Cleanliness Council is working with us to tackle the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic and what that means for an event or meeting at a hotel. Having experts in the area of hygiene, food safety, infectious disease, and infection prevention has been enormously beneficial in helping us think through everything we can do to support organisations as they begin to envision, plan and execute future meetings and events of all sizes.”

Seera Group announced the launch of elaa 3.0, a digital travel management solution that has been designed to optimise corporate and government travel bookings across Saudi Arabia. A new dedicated portal has been launched for elaa, Seera’s travel management company, that enables employees of partner organisations to make all their bookings and travel planning seamlessly without having to go through a tedious and costly manual process. This means reduced cost through higher levels of transparency, pre-defined policy setting and travel management efficiency. Elaa made the most of the downtime caused by travel restrictions during the pandemic by digitising and simplifying the processes and enabling continuous improvement and innovation for its partner companies across private and public sectors. Making travel management self-sufficient, the new improved platform can digitally connect everything for customers whilst supporting them in the new normal, as travel management policies, structures and strategies have changed following the COVID-19 pandemic. Government ministries, departments and corporates with large-scale travel management requirements, can now manage all their requirements through elaa’s new portal, which is designed as a flexible and scalable booking platform that is easy to navigate and time, as well as cost-efficient. Abdulrahman Mutrib, Executive Vice President & Group Chief Technology Officer of Seera Group, said, “The new reality has brought a significant change in the travel requirements of corporate and government entities. Travel policies are constantly being updated or reviewed, and only a Travel Management System that can factor in these changes in real-time can add true value to organisations. Over the past years, we have been investing significantly in digitising our processes, and we are now ready to offer the next-generation TMS system for our customers.”

Sabre hosted a dedicated webinar for travel players in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the region to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on travel, its challenges and opportunities and how the industry is recovering from the crisis. Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR), is the leading software and technology provider that powers the global travel industry.The virtual event, which brought together executives and decision makers from travel companies and travel associations, highlighted market performance over the past few months and the role of technology to power its recovery. “As we enter a period of recovery from COVID-19, travel players need to look into new ways to operate in this new environment of uncertainty and continuous change,” said Abdul-Razzaq Iyer, vice president, Sabre Travel Network Middle East (STNME). “Equipping travel companies with the right solutions – such as artificial intelligence-based applications, that can automate processes, intelligent data analytics and virtual payments solutions – is essential in powering travel companies to navigate through the current challenges.” “Travel agencies play a vital role in rebuilding travellers’ trust and confidence,” Iyer added. “Travellers have a new definition of personalisation that involves new requirements and expectations for health and safety standards. They expect accurate and reliable information on travel restrictions and regulations during their planning phase. We are working closely with our customers to identify the best intelligent solutions and travel safety-related products to help them respond to travellers’ new demands and expectations.” “Saudi travel has proved to be a resilient industry,” said Faisal Kayal, Country Manager KSA, STNME. “We have seen strong market recovery compared to many countries regionally and globally, due to effective planning for the return of domestic travel and …

Amadeus’s latest research explores the leisure traveller’s mindset towards planning and purchasing upcoming travel amidst the realities of COVID-19. To do this, Amadeus got the opinions of +8,500 CheckMyTrip users from around the world through a quantitative and qualitative survey. The research gives us very good reason to be hopeful about the travel industry’s future. Amadeus’s research findings, outlined in the eBook Destination X: Where to Next – What Leisure Travellers Want in a COVID-19 World, shows consumers have a healthy appetite for travel despite the ongoing challenges and unknowns that still lie ahead. Ernesto Sanchez Beaumont, Managing Director of Amadeus Gulf, notes, “Millions of travellers are out there dreaming of their next adventure. They need the travel industry to share what measures are being taken to help keep travellers safe. Enabling travellers to successfully navigate the many variables, such as changing border restrictions, airline and hotel capacity adjustments, and other operational twists and turns, will go a long way to get people travelling again.”