Amadeus and Airplus Team up to Launch Corporate Travel Management Solution

19 March 2002

Lufthansa AirPlus, a
leading international provider of Business Travel Management solutions, and
Amadeus, a leading global distribution system (GDS) and travel industry
technology provider, have teamed up to form a new business travel management
partnership.
Together, both companies will develop an innovative solution
for the management of business travel, which will be marketed by AirPlus
to
corporations worldwide.

The partnering of AirPlus and Amadeus brings together complementary
skills in the area of business travel management: the e-Travel business unit
of Amadeus
provides the most flexible online reservation technology, while
AirPlus adds world class expertise in the area of international payment and
invoicing systems, that is currently used by more than 16,000 corporations.
This co-operation will provide corporations worldwide with a flexible
Internet-based travel management solution, with integrated value-added
services for payment, settlement of travel expenses and management
information.

The partnership of both Amadeus
and AirPlus covers various business
areas in travel management. Both companies will together target significant
opportunities, especially in the field of online booking, management
information systems (MIS) and travel data warehousing.

As part of the partnership, a joint competence center will be
established at the Amadeus development offices in Sophia Antipolis, France.
This center will define, develop, customize and integrate functionalities
for the new travel management solution. The first release of this solution
will be available in the summer of 2002, and will be distributed under the
name AirPlus EasyBooking, a tool that will work fully with all travel
agencies.

“This partnership addresses the entire value-added chain of a business
trip - from its planning and settlement to its analysis. Given each
company`s core competencies, Amadeus and AirPlus represent ideal,
complementary partners,” explains Wibke Sommer, managing director corporate
strategy at AirPlus. “This global and long-term cooperation is also an
important step to realize our strategic objectives, as Amadeus will help
expand our network of partners and enhance our online activities.”

Ian Wheeler, managing director of Amadeus` e-Travel unit said: “We
welcome this opportunity to cooperate with AirPlus. Amadeus` e-Travel
already offers the most flexible and internationally used online travel
management solutions. Through developing tools for AirPlus, we will be able
to provide a compelling solution for AirPlus customers that combines the
online functionality of e-Travel with the expertise of AirPlus in
international corporate payment systems.”

The online solution AirPlus EasyBooking will be distributed by
AirPlus, with the initial focus being Germany, with further countries to
follow successively. In Germany, a joint agreement has been made whereby
both partners, Start Amadeus and AirPlus, will optimize the travel
management solution for the German market and will provide their customers
with support services, including consulting, solution set-up and
implementation. This allocation of resources will bring significant synergy
benefits and corporate customers will receive optimal consultation regarding
their business travel management needs.