Air India takes off a ten yr $190 mn deal

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The National Aviation Company of India (NACIL) today announced that SITA, the aviation IT specialist, has been selected to provide its hosted Horizon Passenger Services System (PSS) to Air India on a turnkey basis following a global competitive tendering process. The deal with the 13.5 million passenger airline is valued at $190 million over ten years.

SITA's Horizon platform provides hosted PSS services to 140 airlines boarding 120 million passengers and will be used to deliver a single airline code in order to allow the seamless integration of the former domestic carrier Indian Airlines with Air India for the first time since they merged in August 2007. Another early deliverable will be enabling Air India to meet the requirements for joining the Star Alliance, adds a press release.

In addition to the core Horizon PSS suite, SITA will also implement an efficient online booking engine, departure control system, check-in and automated boarding control, baggage reconciliation system (BRS) and a frequent flyer programme.

Arvind Jadhav, NACIL Chairman and Managing Director, said: "Implementation of the Horizon Passenger Services System will complete the merger of Air India with the former domestic carrier Indian Airlines, and enable us to align processes and systems to meet Star Alliance standards. Air India will then be able to leverage the complementary strengths and synergies of the single new carrier to the maximum, resulting in a more competitive, customer friendly and world class airline with significant improvement in our passenger yields.

"This will be achieved through maximum flexibility in our "Go to Market" strategy and provision of an easy-to-use booking engine by SITA which will provide us full control over our own ticket distribution and drastically reduce our distribution costs."

Francesco Violante, SITA CEO, said: "It is a great honour for SITA to be the chosen technology partner of Air India as it begins in earnest the journey towards business transformation.

"SITA has been providing Air India with mission-critical services for more than 50 years, including network connectivity at all their domestic and international stations, check-in, air-to-ground communications, fares management and baggage tracing. Air India is now invited to join our Horizon Advisory Board which sets the strategic direction for SITA as it engages with Oracle and other partners to deliver a next generation Passenger Services System which will greatly benefit Air India as it exploits new technology and open systems architecture."

This announcement follows the recent successful migration of two major Asian airlines to the SITA Reservations platform.