German carrier dba has signed up for Amadeus` new generation inventory management system, Altea Plan, joining launch customers Qantas, British Airways and Finnair…
German carrier dba has signed up for Amadeus` new generation inventory management system, Altea Plan, joining launch customers Qantas, British Airways and Finnair. Altea Plan is a flexible, outsourced solution for planning and managing inventory that is fully synchronised with dba/s existing sales and reservation system, Altea Sell also from Amadeus. Such integration allows the airline to unlock vast revenue and yield opportunities, radically enhance its operational efficiency and respond fast to changes in the marketplace.
dba is today Germany`s second largest domestic carrier, operating routes in Germany, France and Spain. Stiff competition in its domestic market led dba to switch first its sales and reservations, and in due course inventory systems, to Amadeus/ revolutionary Customer Management System (CMS).
Martin Gauss, Managing Director at dba, points out that Altea Plan enables us to integrate all our distribution channels with the systems that determine what seat is sold at what price. The resulting view and flow of information across systems means that traveller and sales data can be gathered and used intelligently to create a personalised offer for each customer or to plan business strategy, such that we maximise every sales opportunity.
The Amadeus Altea portfolio of customer management systems, comprising Altea Sell, Altea Plan and Altea Fly, offers a single repository of customer information as opposed to the disintegrated components offered by legacy passenger service systems. The resulting capacity to access customer data across systems in real-time, enables the airline to identify the value of each traveller, recognise them on subsequent occasions and offer them a differentiated experience systematically.
Our choice of Altea is also based on an established relationship with Amadeus during which our confidence in their capacity for service and solutions delivery has been assured, Peter Wojahn, Joint Managing Director at dba, says. For sales, dba uses Altea Sell, Amadeus/ community-based platform for multi-channel sales and reservations, which is used by 138 airlines worldwide.
Wojahn explains that dba needs to compete against low cost carriers but also retain the traditional distribution channel as most of its customers are corporate travellers. With Altea our customers can choose how they want to book their flights within a structure that is cost effective for dba.
Unprecedented automation & integration between point of sale and inventory management With Altea Plan, the airline`s operational efficiency is raised significantly as automated business processes eliminate a large proportion of what is today input manually, says Hans Jorgensen, Amadeus/ Vice President, Airline Business Group. Specifically, with Altea Plan airlines can manage and publish flight schedules, and allow their customers to choose their own seat on the flight. Using the customer record update system, modifications are input only once and reflected throughout the airline`s systems, thanks to a single database and automatic feeds both within the airline and to its multiple distribution channels.
Likewise, Altea Plan`s flexible architecture allows dba to quickly adjust business strategy in response to fast changing market needs, adds Jorgensen. Creation of flights and the publishing of schedules is faster and easier, so that while retaining its full service status, the airline can, for instance, create a low cost inventory to compete on a single route alone, in as little as 15 minutes and with the airline`s own look and feel. In other circumstances, it would take the airline between 1 week and 1 month.
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