Category Archives: Technology

Travelport has announced a new long-term technology partnership via its distributor in Oman, with Eihab Travels. Eihab Travels will use Travelport’s industry leading point of sale solution, Travelport Smartpoint, to provide corporate as well as leisure travel services to major multinational corporations, prominent Middle East firms and individuals. Aided by Travelport’s support, the company’s consultants will benefit from intelligent, fast and accurate search of high quality content from over 400 airlines, 650,000 hotel properties and 35,000 car rental locations. With over 250 airlines signed up to use Travelport’s unique merchandising technology, the company is able to display, gain powerful information around, and sell branded fare families and ancillary products (such as paid seat assignments, baggage fees, priority boarding, etc.) from these airlines. Having recently become the first global distribution system (GDS) to be certified by IATA as a “Level 3” Aggregator under its New Distribution Capability (NDC) initiative, Travelport will soon further benefit the company by creating NDC connections with airlines as they become available.

Travelport and Priceline.com have signed a long-term renewal agreement for Travelport to continue providing pricing, booking and ticketing technology and content to Priceline. The renewal comes approximately 20 years after the two companies signed their first agreement for Priceline to process reservations through Travelport’s GDS. Throughout the past two decades, Travelport and Priceline have worked together to make the process of buying and selling travel easier for customers seeking great travel deals. “Travelport has proven to be a valued partner over the last 20 years in helping Priceline customers find and book the best deals,” said Brigit Zimmerman, Senior Vice President of Flight, Hotel and Packages, Priceline.com. Jason Clarke, Senior Vice President and Managing Director for Agency Commerce, Travelport, added, “We are committed to supporting Priceline with our industry-leading search and pricing capabilities, as well as offering Priceline new technologies that offer faster connections, greater content and more relevant choices.”  

Omeir Travel Agency has extended its partnership with Amadeus Gulf to expand the agency’s integrated travel services and digital solutions offering for its customers. Under the three-year agreement, Omeir Travel will leverage cutting-edge travel technology solutions aimed at maintaining the agency’s competitive edge. This includes driving automation across the agency’s operations and optimising intelligence tools in order to improve product customisation and enhance customer experience. The latest agreement will also see Omeir Travel diversify its capabilities in online and retail shops. Abdulla Bin Omeir, CEO, Omeir Travel Agency said, “In our efforts to deliver exceptional customer experience, we have embarked on a journey of digital transformation for our business. With Amadeus as our technology provider, we are confident that we can stay agile and adapt to the fast-changing needs of our customers.” According to Graham Nichols, Managing Director, Amadeus Gulf, “We are delighted to renew our long association with Omeir Travel as they embark on this exciting digital project. We will bring our vast worldwide on-line experience and technology to support them fully throughout their transformation. This new agreement demonstrates the confidence that they have in our technology, service and support.”

Travelport and Air France-KLM have signed an agreement for the distribution of content through Travelport’s platform. Air France-KLM and HOP! content on Travelport’s platform will include Travelport’s rich content, branded fares, fare families and multiple ancillaries. Travelport customers will continue to benefit from Travelport’s tools beyond booking capability that enable workflow automation, change management processes, multiple content integration, robotics for fulfilment and other vital services. This agreement also enables customers selected by Air France HOP! and KLM to access a private channel via Travelport through which they will receive content without the additional distribution surcharge levied by Air France-KLM starting April 1, 2018. Derek Sharp, Senior Vice President and Managing Director – Air Commerce, Travelport, says, “This agreement is an extension of a long-term relationship which has delivered greater choice to Air France KLM’s customers. We look forward to a continuing productive partnership as we deploy new technology with the airline.” Emmanuelle Gailland, Vice President – Distribution, Air France-KLM, says, “Travelport has been a great partner throughout our private channel engagement as a transition towards NDC. Both Air France KLM and Travelport will work together to bring NDC content of new fares, products, services and rich media in the marketplace.”

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has awarded New Distribution Capability (NDC) Level 3 certification to zeeyarah.com, managed by Superior Tracks Travel and Tourism Agency based in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Zeeyarah.com becomes the first online travel agency and B2B reseller in the MENA region to receive the highest level of IATA NDC certification on PADIS Publication 16.2 Schema. Zeeyarah announced the official launching of  zeeyarah.com in KSA and zeeyarah.ae in United Arab Emirates market with online payment facilities including. As part of NDC certification, Zeeyarah had commenced direct connection with major Middle Eastern and European carriers. Dr Abdulaziz Khayat, Assistant Vice President – Sales Strategies, Saudi Arabian Airlines said, “In keeping up with the new advancements in the airlines reservation technologies, Saudia is proud to announce the successful completion of its NDC pilot project. We thank our partners at Amadeus, TPconnects and zeeyarah.com for their excellent work and dedication throughout the implementation of this project.” Mohammed Gaus, CEO and Founder, Zeeyarah, commented, “This is great achievement for us to start-up in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia because generally such projects commences outside Kingdom and then try to penetrate into the country but we have done the opposite.”

Amadeus has announced the creation of a dedicated programme to drive the industrialisation of New Distribution Capability (NDC) and ensure its success for all travel players. Created by IATA, NDC is an XML-based data transmission standard that holds huge promise for the travel industry, and will enable travel companies – from airlines to travel agencies – to evolve travel distribution and merchandising. The NDC-X programme will bring together experts from across Amadeus’ business to focus on practical use cases of the standard; adopting a test and learn approach to deliver improved capabilities for the industry. Gianni Pisanello, who has held a variety of leadership roles within Amadeus’ airlines business, will lead the new NDC-X programme. The aim is to create better journeys for travellers through the best use of technology, and this transversal program will work with the travel seller and airlines to deliver just that. In terms of commercial possibilities, a recent study by Phocuswright revealed that total gross bookings in the Middle East for air, hotel, car and tour services totaled $74 billion last year, with an estimated annual growth rate of eight per cent between now and 2020.

Rehlat, an online travel agency, has renewed a long-term agreement with Sabre Corporation to continue using its technology to power its online platform, Rehlat.com. For the past two years, Rehlat has been using Sabre’s technology and travel management services to help increase its online conversion performance, grow revenue, improve customer satisfaction levels and personalise its services offered to customers. “We have witnessed strong double-digit growth since we launched in 2015,” said Bader Al Bader, President and Founder, Rehlat. “Sabre’s global expertise in online travel, impressive dedication and cutting-edge technology have enabled us to succeed in a highly competitive marketplace and tap into the growth of the online travel industry. We have also used Sabre’s APIs to roll out new capabilities in mobile to meet the growing expectations of our tech-savvy travellers.” “Consumer behaviour is rapidly changing in the region, and this is fuelled by personal technology that is faster and more accessible,” said Raymond Vrijenhoek, Vice President, Sabre Travel Network Middle East. “Online travel agencies have been quick to respond to this, using the latest web service and API technology to give travellers what they want – the right product at the right time and in the right context. Rehlat shares our passion and trust that technology can simplify the complexity of today’s travel.”  

According to Dubai tourism, Dubai will be the first city to embark on the journey of democratising travel through the use of emerging technologies as it adds an additional distribution channel for hotels in its first phase, as its recently announced 10X initiative. Launched at the World Government Summit by His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council of Dubai Government as one of the ‘Dubai 10X’ projects, Dubai Tourism (DTCM) is set to implement this ground-breaking programme within the next 24 months, enabling Dubai to enhance distribution of its tourism inventory through a future-proofed virtual B2B marketplace for the travel industry. Explaining the objective of 10X, Al Maktoum said, “Success of governments is determined by their ability and flexibility to re-invent themselves, and upgrade their services to cater to the evolving needs of the community.” Dubai Tourism aims to give global guests direct choice across the breadth and depth of the local tourism inventory within a highly safe, transparent and real-time environment. As the first mover in the facilitation of this type of technologically advanced, secure and scalable digital solution for the travel industry, it positions Dubai as a think-thank and innovation leader seeking to truly democratise travel.

Travelport has partnered with ACI Worldwide, a leading provider of electronic banking and payment solutions, to deliver an intelligent fraud control and settlement solution for its airline customers called Travelport Authorise Plus. It enhances Travelport’s existing card payment gateway by integrating with ACI’s award-winning ReD Shield platform. Through the integration, Travelport can provide its airline customers with the ability to seamlessly track ticketing purchase processes right through to the completion of a journey. Additional features include the dynamic fraud screening of card payments used to purchase air tickets via Travelport-connected agents, ability to prevent ticket issuance, and detailed online management reports of all transactions and status. ACI’s UP Payments Risk Management solution utilises advanced data analytics, adaptive machine learning and customer profiling techniques. Derek Sharp, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Air Commerce—Travelport, commented, “Our partnership with ACI Worldwide is in response to the growing need to provide our airline customers with highly sophisticated tools to prevent card fraud in our industry. The major advantage of combining Travelport Authorise Plus with ACI ReD Shield is that we have built a fully integrated solution, which applies fraud control management without the need for both our airline and agent customers to do any major development or change their workflow process of today.”

dnata has been awarded a licence to provide flight catering services to airlines departing Vancouver International Airport. This marks dnata Catering’s entry into Canada. With this licence, dnata will now commence planning, approvals, build and fit-out of a dedicated catering facility at Vancouver, at an investment of more than CAD $7 million dnata, commencing operations in Q4 2018. This will be dnata’s 64th catering location and 130th global air services location, with its recent opening of a new catering facility at Dublin Airport, Ireland. The facility will have an initial capacity of up to 8,000 meals a day. dnata expects to employ more than 150 staff once operating at that level. Robin Padgett, Divisional Senior Vice President—Catering, dnata, “Canada has always been an exciting opportunity for us as a caterer. To turn that opportunity into reality at Vancouver International Airport is particularly exciting, given the solid passenger growth and recognition the airport has received in recent years. We are proud of our ability to deliver globally authentic and diverse cuisine across the world, and we’re more than ready to bring that to airlines and their passengers departing Vancouver.”