Giovanni Bisignani, CEO with seat in London, said 'Opodo will offer extremely competitive prices for flights, hotel rooms and car rentals'. Opodo will introduce market-specific websites which share the common backoffice technology based in Ireland, but which communicate in the local language, present specific content and are supported by local call centers and fulfillment agencies.
One of the differences e.g. is that German customers can pay by bank transfer while British customers are expected to use plastic mainly. Opodo is a joint company of nine airlines. Air France, British Airways and Lufthansa own 22.86% each, Alitalia, Iberia, and KLM own 9.14% each, Finnair owns 1.7% and Austrian Airlines and Aer Lingus own 1.1% each. There have been investments of 128 million Euro so far. Opodo, shaped after the American Orbitz model, relies on Amadeus and Galileo as GDSs but has features such as from Broadvision in the overall architecture. Opodo aims to be profitable and market leader in Germany by 2004.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
