Amadeus has come up with major ancillary services initiatives in an effort to enable airlines to maximise revenues profitably.

Published: 07 Jul 2010

Amadeus has come up with major ancillary services initiatives in an effort to enable airlines to maximise revenues profitably.

The company has come up with a multi-channel ancillary services solution.

Amadeus shared that its latest initiatives with Corsairfly and Finnair represent key milestones in its roll-out of a comprehensive set of ancillary services solutions that “will enable airlines to deliver unprecedented customer value, and travel agencies to search, book and service ancillary sales quickly and efficiently”.

Amadeus shared that Corsairfly has started to pilot Amadeus Ancillary Services, which will enable the airline to sell ancillary services on its website and via travel agencies.

Amadeus Ancillary Services enables Corsairfly to offer travellers the option to book additional baggage allowance so that they can, for example, pack all they need for a two-week family holiday. Corsairfly files the fares for these services via ATPCo, which supplies fare data to all the major airfare pricing engines that reserve and ticket air travel.

In another major initiative to support the airline industry in its management of ancillary services sales, Amadeus implemented Electronic Miscellaneous Document Server (EMD Server) for Finnair last month. This solution enables airlines to issue, store, manage and distribute associated and standalone EMD, the industry standard fulfillment document which is vital to the effective sale and management of ancillary services.

EMD is the industry-standard fulfilment solution which allows airlines and travel agencies to sell and track the usage of all ancillary charges whether they are linked to the flight coupon, such as excess baggage and seats, or standalone charges such as lounge access and rebooking fees.

Amadeus EMD server will be fully integrated with Amadeus Altéa Customer Management Solution but is also designed to be fully compatible with third-party reservation, inventory and departure control systems to enable airlines to manage the sale and delivery of ancillary services throughout the customer lifecycle, from booking to check-in to after-sales service.

Amadeus will further extend EMD capability to include Amadeus travel agencies in September 2010 and will begin piloting with agents in the Finnish market with Finnair later in the year. A further deliverable for the end of 2010 is the extension of EMD capability to support interlining between airlines hosted on the Amadeus EMD server.

Real-time access

Ancillary service sales are fully integrated within the travel agent workflow removing the need for travel consultants to book ancillary services across multiple interfaces.

Amadeus has developed a unique graphic catalogue display to enable travel agencies to easily view real time airline’s services offering. This catalogue automatically calculates the total price of all selected services and triggers the booking in 1 click, allowing travel agents to sell ancillary services quickly and efficiently.