The International Air Transport Association has signed an agreement to resell services of aviation and hospitality data specialist Innovata.

The deal marks a multi-year extension to a strategic marketing partnership that was formed by the two organisations in March 2003.

(Left: Richard Thorne, Managing Director Aviation, Innovata who signed the agreement with IATA in Montreal, Quebec this week)

IATA will continue to promote Innovata’s SRS (Schedules Reference Service).

Upon signing the agreement, Richard Thorne, Managing Director Aviation, Innovata said: “Innovata has made enormous strides in putting down a huge footprint in this industry over the past several years and the SRS strategic marketing partnership with IATA has been a key element in helping secure that footprint.”

With this renewed agreement, IATA’s member airlines will continue to benefit from cost savings delivered through Innovata’s SRS worldwide airline schedules database – a service built on Innovata’s advanced database platform and technical infrastructure that includes schedules for over 900 participating airlines.

The SRS Analyser – an online schedules analysis tool powered by Innovata data – will continue to be sold as an embedded module within IATA’s PaxIS and AirportIS market intelligence products.

In addition, the agreement has been broadened to appoint IATA the exclusive reseller in designated world markets for Innovata’s full range of SRS schedules and related data products, plus its complete portfolio of timetable and route network mapping services – greatly enhancing IATA’s ability to deliver significant cost-savings and efficiencies to airlines around the globe.

“I am delighted that we have not only reached agreement to renew the core elements of that partnership but also to have broadened the scope of how our two companies will work even more closely together going forward,” Richard Thorne added.

Innovata, in association with IATA, maintains an industry leading airline schedules database with over 900 participating airlines.  It also provides a range of electronic timetable and mapping services to over 100 airline, airport and travel website companies and provides its data to several online analytical services used by well over 300 industry related companies.

Richard Thorne added: “The original SRS strategic agreement with IATA set up in 2003 was designed to ensure, from IATA’s perspective, that there would always be a strong and reliable source for a comprehensive high quality industry schedules database available for its airline members that would be priced in an open transparent way. Also, with Innovata operating a lean and efficient company we were able to pass on that efficiency in lower fees to airlines and save them money compared to the historically high prices they had hitherto been paying , and in some cases still are for data from Innovata’s only competitor in this market.”

“The extension of this agreement means IATA airlines members can still enjoy a source of low-cost high-quality aggregated schedules and minimum connect time industry data for years to come.”

“Additionally the extension of the agreement to incorporate an exclusive reseller arrangement means that airlines in parts of the world where Innovata has limited or no sales presence can now be serviced by IATA and benefit from the opportunity to buy Innovata products via IATA - not just our range of data services but also our portfolio of electronic timetables and route network mapping products. These are the leading products in the market today in terms of use and adoption by airlines and airports,” he added.