Qatar Airways has awarded SITA a five-year, $30 million contract to build and maintain an advanced telecommunications network infrastructure, connecting all of the airline’s outstations to its reservations host thus creating a fully-managed networked environment.

SITA is creating a fully-managed global intranet which leverages a suite of TCP/IP protocols operating over SITA’s IP Virtual Private Network (IP VPN), the largest such network in the world.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer, Akbar Al Baker, said, “SITA will seamlessly connect our offices in the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and Europe, and the network will improve the effectiveness of our business applications. It will also help us bridge the information and communication barriers that in the past have typified far-reaching global operations. SITA has demonstrated that they have both the technological expertise and solution offering required to meet our communication needs - both now, and in the future.”

 

Hani El-Assaad, SITA Regional Vice-President, Middle East & Turkey, said: ‘‘We are extremely pleased to be working with Qatar Airways and look forward to building on the close relationship we have enjoyed to date.

 

“Many leading companies have moved to IP and have used SITA’s IP VPN to get them there. SITA’s flagship product is used to build company intranets. It provides high performance and secure access between operating locations and outstations located anywhere in the world.”

In addition to IP VPN (Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network), SITA will also provide Qatar Airways with its IP VPN at Airports service which enables access to the airline’s private network over shared airport infrastructure, hence reducing telecommunication costs by more than 30%, without compromising quality of service or security.

SITA will also connect Qatar Airways common use terminal equipment (CUTE) to its host/data centres over AirportConnect Net, a multi-airport extranet solution. The airline currently uses SITA’s AirportConnect CUTE, the world’s leading common user terminal platform available at more than 200 airports worldwide.

The AirportConnect Net solution allows airlines to share passenger handling facilities while providing them with access to their own host applications for functions such as check-in, boarding pass and baggage tag issuance and other departure control services. The solution can increase an airline’s productivity by up to 25%, while minimizing passenger queue time.

As part of the agreement, SITA will also continue supplying Qatar Airways with Type B messaging, which is considered by members of the ATI as a “must have” to enable communications with business partners over a secure and highly reliable messaging network.

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