Star Alliance to Come Up With IT Product for Lufthansa, United Airlines
Implementing an alliance product for its member carriers, Star Alliance, together with Lufthansa and United Airlines, has finalized a deal with Amadeus for a next generation technology platform for passenger service systems in the airline industry.
As a result of the development, Lufthansa and United will replace their own legacy IT systems, with expansion to other members being planned. The new platform is based on a common technical infrastructure and software.
Lufthansa will begin transitioning the first functions from its current system to the Common IT Platform in the second half of 2006 and expects to complete migration by the end of 2007.
United is presently finalising its migration timeline, according to a statement. Star Alliance stated the new system has been developed to better meet the customer demands in today´s changing market environment, while at the same time permitting the member carriers to substantially reduce costs.
The new system offers enhanced customer service functionalities, specifically for both sales and airport environments, and includes such transactions as schedule, availability, inventory, reservations, fare quote and ticketing as well as passenger check-in.
The improvement in customer service will come through ease of use as well as through common and better quality of data which the airline service agents will be able to access when dealing with alliance customers, said a statement.
