Amadeus, an online reservation solution and Southwest Airlines, United States biggest carrier in terms of passenger volume, have announced that the US carrier has selected Altéa as its single reservation solution for both domestic and international operations.
Southwest is the US largest domestic carrier, with more than 100m passengers boarded each year, and this agreement therefore represents an important milestone for Amadeus.
Once implemented, Southwest will be Amadeus’ largest airline IT partner worldwide in terms of passengers boarded.
As its first US customer, the development signals that Altéa has become truly a global system because adding an airline of this scope, magnitude and vision to Altéa demonstrates the flexibility, functionality and value that the system delivers to more than 100 airlines worldwide and their customers.
The current agreement also builds on Amadeus’ existing partnership with Southwest, which began selling international itineraries in January 2014, using Amadeus’ Altéa reservation solution.
It will begin flying those itineraries on July 1, 2014.
While it is believed that extending the tremendous cooperation between the two companies is an important step for Amadeus, in its communications around both the international and domestic agreements, Southwest has been very positive about Amadeus too.
From the words of Gary Kelly, Southwest chief executive officer, who said he “could not be more impressed with the experience of Amadeus and the capabilities of their product,” it is clear that the relationship that has developed between the two companies has been critical in delivering this successful outcome.
