Amadeus: Tech Forward Platform Revolutionizing The Travel Industry
Technology has affected individuals and businesses to a significant extent, and the travel industry is no exception with its future based on a combination of Organized Data, Improved Service, Real-time Data, and Analytics. The travel industry is moving rapidly from traffic patterns to a web/mobile history where data is recorded, stored, and analyzed to address individual traveler requirements. This is where the travel technology solutions platform plays a pivotal role by aiding and designing a customized traveler experience based on traveler needs and the know-how available on traveler preferences. Travel tech solution providers bring in efficiency, automation, customer intelligence with data, and more business opportunities to offer to different customer needs, as well as fast development in the market and innovation in product and service offerings.Amadeus is a Europe based world leader in travel technology with over 35 years of revolutionizing the travel industry. It connects the entire travel ecosystem via airlines, travel agencies, providers, airports, ground handlers, hotel chains, car rental companies and more to provide better travel experiences for more than 2 billion passengers worldwide annually.
Amadeus connects and brings together the whole travel ecosystem on the platform to deliver a seamless experience for every traveler. Over 400 airlines, hundreds of airports, some of the world’s largest hospitality groups, and thousands of travel sellers use Amadeus travel technology to power better journeys. Amadeus Labs Bengaluru is the second-largest engineering and R&D hub of Amadeus worldwide with more than 2500 engineers rapidly innovating on the Amadeus platform and providing creative solutions to the industry.
“Amadeus is primarily a technology company, with our SAAS-based technology platform serving as our USP and providing a competitive edge over the others. As a company, we have demonstrated our commitment to innovation by investing close to 800 million euros annually on the technology platform”, emphasizes Mani Ganeshan, APAC Engineering Head and Center Head.
Back until 2017, Most of the world's airlines and technology companies were using the (TPF) Transaction Processing Facility, a mainframe system, which provides processing speed and capabilities but lacks the agility and innovation that companies require. Amadeus being an accelerator of technology, decided to move away from mainframes to open systems. This was a significant milestone which enabled further evolution of their platform and Amadeus became the first technology provider in the world to run a Global Distribution System and Passenger Service System exclusively on open systems.
Collaboration towards Innovation
Innovation is in Amadeus’ DNA and as pioneers in the world for SAAS based systems, their entire software runs on a private cloud in a self-owned data center. This was done 35 years back and their commitment to innovation has only grown over the decades. With over 1.9 billion passengers boarded annually pre pandemic, Amadeus was working on shaping the future of travel technology when Covid 19 happened. The impact on the travel industry, led to a
tremendous acceleration of travel technology. Amadeus remained prudent and devised strategies to support its customers to operate more efficiently, optimize costs and execute touchless traveler experiences through its solutions such as touchless check in, biometric boarding, touchless baggage claim and more. Amadeus has now embarked upon one of its most pertinent initiatives – migrating to the public cloud. This move will be a new chapter in travel as it will make journeys increasingly connected, frictionless and sustainable.
Amadeus chose to partner with Microsoft, a big collaboration in which Amadeus will migrate all of its assets from its own private data centre to the public cloud over the course of three years. This is a massive transformation program that will not only transform Amadeus, as a technology provider but also transform the entire industry as a whole. “Amadeus is a forerunner in the industry, pioneering some of the most transformative journeys. We will get efficient in our development processes, our operations, resilience, data capabilities and using AI to gain insights. This is the Next wave of Innovation for the entire travel industry and our Bengaluru centre is playing a critical role in this cloud transformation journey", says Mani.
According the Amadeus, the benefits of moving to the public cloud will completely transform travel. It will bring in resilience, higher availability, faster deployments, help get closer to customers, reduce latency and provide ultra-fast response times. An important factor to note is that it would also effectively address data sovereignty challenges, provide enhanced security and help partner with the big tech providers to bring innovations faster to the Travel Industry eventually creating a safe travel ecosystem for all.
Cambodia Airport is a great example of an airport on the cloud! Amadeus Flow, Amadeus’ fully integrated cloud platform for airport passenger services, to rapidly deploy new passenger handling capacity via the internet, enables agile response to any situation. With Amadeus Flow, Cambodia Airport will harness the cloud to deliver passenger services from any location it chooses. Amadeus Flow’s open architecture is future-ready, laying the foundation to deploy innovations more easily, such as biometrics, contactless and self-service technologies as required. All of which can help to meet passenger demands for safer and more hygienic travel, whilst delivering an excellent passenger experience.
Significantly, Amadeus is working on delivering NDC (New Distribution Capabilities) to the travel industry, an enabler in the enhancement of travel retailing. The firm is looking to transform the industry incorporating new distribution capabilities into a concept that is very similar to that of ordering from an eCommerce platform, where customers can search, order, track, and then have their orders fulfilled. It is a massive functional evolution in the industry.
Amadeus' journey with Microsoft may have only just begun, but there are already several projects on track and many more at the exploratory stage. This collaboration is about more than just accelerating cloud migration; it's also about unleashing the next wave of travel industry innovation. Amadeus is determined to revolutionize, transform and evolve the travel industry to build the future of travel.
Amadeus chose to partner with Microsoft, a big collaboration in which Amadeus will migrate all of its assets from its own private data centre to the public cloud over the course of three years. This is a massive transformation program that will not only transform Amadeus, as a technology provider but also transform the entire industry as a whole. “Amadeus is a forerunner in the industry, pioneering some of the most transformative journeys. We will get efficient in our development processes, our operations, resilience, data capabilities and using AI to gain insights. This is the Next wave of Innovation for the entire travel industry and our Bengaluru centre is playing a critical role in this cloud transformation journey", says Mani.
According the Amadeus, the benefits of moving to the public cloud will completely transform travel. It will bring in resilience, higher availability, faster deployments, help get closer to customers, reduce latency and provide ultra-fast response times. An important factor to note is that it would also effectively address data sovereignty challenges, provide enhanced security and help partner with the big tech providers to bring innovations faster to the Travel Industry eventually creating a safe travel ecosystem for all.
Amadeus is the world leader in the industry, pioneering some of the most transformative journeys
Cambodia Airport is a great example of an airport on the cloud! Amadeus Flow, Amadeus’ fully integrated cloud platform for airport passenger services, to rapidly deploy new passenger handling capacity via the internet, enables agile response to any situation. With Amadeus Flow, Cambodia Airport will harness the cloud to deliver passenger services from any location it chooses. Amadeus Flow’s open architecture is future-ready, laying the foundation to deploy innovations more easily, such as biometrics, contactless and self-service technologies as required. All of which can help to meet passenger demands for safer and more hygienic travel, whilst delivering an excellent passenger experience.
Significantly, Amadeus is working on delivering NDC (New Distribution Capabilities) to the travel industry, an enabler in the enhancement of travel retailing. The firm is looking to transform the industry incorporating new distribution capabilities into a concept that is very similar to that of ordering from an eCommerce platform, where customers can search, order, track, and then have their orders fulfilled. It is a massive functional evolution in the industry.
Amadeus' journey with Microsoft may have only just begun, but there are already several projects on track and many more at the exploratory stage. This collaboration is about more than just accelerating cloud migration; it's also about unleashing the next wave of travel industry innovation. Amadeus is determined to revolutionize, transform and evolve the travel industry to build the future of travel.