Feature of the Month
Thomsonfly Becomes 15th Live New Skies Customer
New Skies, the world's only true large scale Next-Generation reservation solution, eclipses the "competition" with transaction activity reaching 25% of overall reservations in 2006.
On March 31, UK-based Thomsonfly became Navitaire's 15th customer to go live on its next-generation New Skies reservation system. The New Skies reservation system is an integrated Web-enabled passenger management system with Internet booking, call center, real-time reporting, ancillary revenue generation and airport check-in functionality.
Hallmarks of the New Skies system are robust Internet booking and passenger self-service capabilities, flexible connectivity to other travel partners and extensive Application Programming Interfaces (API). New Skies' API functionality includes nearly 100 Web Services to support passenger services ranging from booking, rebooking and check-in; to agent automation and management, customer data and airport operations information. The APIs allow carriers to more flexibly deploy and utilize the New Skies passenger management system across their global networks and with selected travel partners.
Navitaire's reservation services are used by more than 50 airlines around the globe. Navitaire processed 200 million reservations in 2006, with New Skies representing over 25% of all monthly transactions for the last half of the year.
Thomsonfly joins fellow TUI Airlines on the New Skies platform: Hapagfly and Hapag-Lloyd Express (HLX), which have recently merged and re-branded as TUIfly, and sister carrier Morocco-based Jet4you.
The TUI Group has looked forward to having multiple TUI Airlines on one innovative, flexible reservation platform. Dr. Dieter Faerber, head of TUI Airlines Distribution Competence Center, states the value of this move: "New Skies allows us to build more interesting, dynamic and profitable business models."
Through a common reservations platform, the TUI Airlines using Navitaire anticipate benefits including:
- Enabling instant functionality across the airlines, with the ability to tailor operations to local market needs
- Taking advantage of opportunities to sell the same flight capacity through multiple airlines with a minimum of complexity
- Generating rich marketing opportunities and support for standardized processes
- Linking its carriers to a variety of selling channels and services, and
- Creating unique opportunities to re-engineer the tour operating business.
"Over the last few years, the move to Navitaire has helped us achieve many of our goals and paid off handsomely for the TUI Airlines now using Navitaire systems," continued Dr. Faerber. "We have developed a close relationship with Navitaire. With New Skies, our relationship will be even closer in the future."
"The TUI Group, a well respected group of airlines and travel related service companies since its inception, has been at the forefront of travel by introducing new ideas to redefine the industry and capitalize on emerging opportunities," said John Dabkowski, managing director, Navitaire. "TUI Airlines are a concrete example of innovative airlines collectively adopting new technologies and achieving successful results. They have truly mastered the art of achieving synergy through economy-of-scale while preserving and maintaining each TUI Airlines' distinctive national brand identity. In an industry that can never take profitability for granted, this is no small accomplishment."
"New Skies is the single true next-generation reservation system that not only has significant numbers of airline customers already live, but is also running substantial volumes in production," he continued. "Airlines using New Skies are well poised to reap the benefits that a real next-generation system can deliver."