The global provider of IT solutions to the

airline industry,  SITA INC (Information Networking Computing) announced

today that a record 105 million airline passengers worldwide were boarded

last year thanks to SITA INC’s IT applications and common-use facilities

availed of by over 150 airlines operating out of hundreds of airports.
“There is no doubt that 2004 was a tremendous year for SITA INC. These

figures show the value of having an IT supplier for reservations and

bookings that is totally focussed on helping the airlines to simplify the

passenger journey and to reduce distribution and sales costs.

“Our ability to support legacy-based systems combined with the introduction

of an e-ticketing solution is proven to be working effectively by these

record-breaking numbers. We are helping airlines to save costs by providing

them with more simple processes such as access to internet booking

engines,” said SITA INC managing director, Francesco Violante.

SITA INC’s 18% growth in passengers boarded over the last year reflects the

stability of SITA’s legacy systems but also a migration by small to

mid-level airlines to IP-based reservations and booking systems which SITA

INC’s Horizon portfolio can ably support.

One of SITA’s newest customers for its reservations system is VLM Airlines

who are growing at a rapid rate using SITA’s passenger management

solutions. VLM recently announced it transported over 500,000 passengers in

2004,  which meant an increase of 31% in passengers transported on its

scheduled flights, and an overall increase of 28% compared to 2003.

Rony Timmermans,  Chief Commercial and Financial Officer of VLM airlines

said:  “A reservations system is one of the most critical applications for

an airline,  so you have to make sure you choose the right system and the

right provider.  We were looking for a stable provider with a lot of

expertise.  SITA INC has proven to be the right decision. Since we’ve been

using the SITA system we have seen a substantial growth in unit revenue.”

He continued:  “Like any other airline, reducing our distribution costs is

key to our success and we will shortly be migrating to the SITA e-commerce

platform,  i-TravelDirect, and implementing SITA e-ticketing. This is going

to allow us to reduce our distribution costs even further. In 2003, our

online reservations accounted for just 3% of our total reservations. In

2004,  this grew to 15%, but we are confident that with the features and

reliability of the new i-TravelDirect system we can target 25-30% of all

reservations to be made online by the end of 2005.”
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