Print Preview : Olympic Airways flies high with Mercator's outsourced revenue accounting solution

Olympic Airways flies high with Mercator's outsourced revenue accounting solution
Olympic Airways, the national airline of Greece, has signed a contract to acquire the new Revenue Accounting Bureau Service from Mercator, the IT division of the Dubai-based Emirates Group.

The deal, the largest single contract in Mercator's history, almost doubles the volume of business passing through the Bureau, launched only in June 2002 and already successfully in service at Emirates Airline and Air Tahiti Nui.

Now the bureau, tailor-made for medium to large airlines, will handle about 12 million Olympic coupons a year worth some US $220 million in gross sales, and almost doubling the number it processes annually to 25 million.

The new solution will enable Olympic to harvest major business benefits from improving revenue, providing accurate billing and verification, reducing accounting bills, enhancing productivity and eliminating training costs.

Based on Mercator's industry-leading RAPID solution, it converts data on air tickets and air waybills into the financial and strategic analysis an airline needs to sharpen its competitive edge.

Olympic, founded in 1957, has expanded into a major international carrier flying more than seven million people a year on a fleet of 41 modern aircraft. It serves more than 50 domestic and international cities throughout Africa, Middle East, Europe, North America and Greece.

Angelo Christodoulatos, its Chief Financial Officer, said: Capturing and understanding the financial data on each and every ticket is crucial to any airline, and Olympic is no exception.

Put simply, we need to have the most accurate revenue accounting solution available today, and back it up with the best support service on the market. Mercator's Bureau Service offered us unrivalled functionality and the fastest rollout times, and so was clearly our natural first choice.

It is hosted on two data centres at Mercator's high-tech Dubai headquarters and managed by experienced professionals who will ensure that the service is consistently top quality. Airlines can take advantage of the Bureau service regardless of where they are based.

Hugh Pride, Director IT at Mercator, said, Top-quality revenue accounting is crucial to the success of any airline, and we are committed to working with Olympic's Athens team to assure it of a truly world-class service.

The deal confirms our belief that our unequalled product quality, combined with more than two thousand man-years of revenue accounting experience, makes us the first choice supplier for airline revenue accounting bureau services.

The implementation was completed in only two months, a record.

As well as Olympic, the RAPID family also includes Air Malawi, Air New Zealand, Air Pacific, Air Tahiti Nui, Air Zimbabwe, British Airways, Emirates, Qantas, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Brunei, Singapore Airlines Cargo, SriLankan, TACA and Varig.

Seen here, seated: Angelo Christodoulatos, CFO, Olympic Airways (left), and Hugh Pride, Director IT, Mercator (right), flanked by senior management representatives from both organisations. Vicky Karantzavelou - Thursday, December 19, 2002