SITA to play key role in simplifying the business of the aviation community…
SITA to play key role in simplifying the business of the aviation community at SITA`s Annual General Assembly, Paul Coby, Chairman of the SITA Group, has called on the aviation community to make smarter and more customer focused investment in IT and telecommunications to help achieve the goal of sustained profitability.
SITA`s mission is to provide IT and telecommunication services tailored to the needs of air transport, helping customers benefit from cost reductions and greater business efficiencies whilst at the same time enhancing customer service. SITA`s ownership by the aviation community ensures that SITA leaves in its customers` pockets the margin that other suppliers make as profits, said Paul Coby, Chairman SITA Group.
He continued: We must reinforce SITA`s unique role in the air transport community. SITA must deliver. It is then up to the aviation community to use SITA well. This is to the advantage of air transport companies, their shareholders and passengers. Aviation should use SITA or lose it.
The role of IT in driving cost efficiencies was reinforced at the International Air Transport Association`s (IATA) Annual General Meeting, where four specific projects aiming to Simplify the Business were approved. These aim to achieve: 100 per cent e-ticketing by 2007, the universal acceptance of common use self-service kiosks, implementation of bar code standards to replace costly magnetic stripe boarding passes and the rapid adoption of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) baggage tags.
IATA has provided a ringing endorsement of the strategic role of IT within air transportation. All airline CIOs and IT Directors should take note of the imperative to simplify and transform the airline business. A collaborative approach across the industry is vital to driving these four `Simplify the Business` projects to success, concluded Paul Coby.
In 2003 SITA completed its restructuring. Peter Buecking, President, SITA Group, leads the Executive Committee, is exploring further community developments and heads a shared services organization. The SITA Group operates two separate but
interrelated organizations: Led by Director General, Hans-Peter Kohlhammer, SITA SC (Societe Cooperative), the global network services cooperative, achieved total revenues of US$1,054.3 million in 2003. Under the leadership of Managing
Director, Francesco Violante, SITA Information Networking Computing (SITA INC), provider of applications and infrastructure services, delivered a pretax profit of US$15.8 million dollars before one-off restructuring costs and a pre-tax loss of US$10.2 million dollars after restructuring costs. SITA INC total revenues for 2003 were US$694.5 million dollars, 3.8 per cent higher than in 2002.
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