The French National Railway, Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF), and Amadeus have strengthened their 16-year partnership as SNCF becomes the launch customer for Amadeus Agent Track, a state-of-the-art rail booking solution for travel agents.

Amadeus, a leading travel technology partner and transaction processor for the global travel and tourism industry, and SNCF have also agreed an extension to their full content agreement, which will now run to the end of 2012.

Amadeus Agent Track enables agents to access the rail company’s schedules and inventory, providing a ‘single view’ of fares and availability on a single screen.

A graphical user interface makes it easy-to-use, improving agent productivity. The solution will allow SNCF to have full integration with the travel agent’s back office systems and will help them to drive sales in the indirect channel.

Using the Amadeus solution, full content for SNCF can be accessed by all SNCF-accredited travel agents in France, and to Rail Europe-accredited agents in Europe.

These travel sellers have access to all SNCF fares, origins and destinations, and products, including services on Eurostar, Thalys and Lyria, among others.

SNCF full content is also available to online travel agencies using Amadeus Web Services track.

Thomas Drexler, director of rail, Amadeus, said: “We are delighted to mark 16 years of partnership with SNCF, one of the world’s leading rail companies, and pleased to look to the future together with this extension to our agreement.

“SNCF’s pioneering approach is demonstrated by its position as launch customer for Amadeus Agent Track.

“This is part of Amadeus Total Rail, a unique concept that is helping rail companies to meet the challenges of a rapidly-evolving industry, both from a distribution and an operational point of view.”

Icelandair

Also today, Icelandair has announced they have renewed their long-term IT partnership with Amadeus for a further ten years.

The new agreement spans core IT solutions including; the full Altéa suite, covering Reservations, Inventory and Departure Control as well as Amadeus’ Revenue Management Solution, e-Ticket Server and e-Commerce Suite for online sales.

In addition, Iceland’s national flag carrier will adopt Amadeus’ leading Ancillary Services Solution to support multichannel sales of ancillary products and Amadeus’ EMD Server for processing IATA’s standard Electronic Miscellaneous Documents which allow for efficient fulfilment and processing of ancillary service sales. 

The contract renewal - already in effect – will allow both companies to maintain their strong partnership and collaborative relationship. The previous IT agreement was signed in 2006 and ran for five years.