SITA has announced plans to establish a global network of partners to provide IT solutions to medium and small-sized airports. This will make the company’s market-leading shared use passenger and baggage
processing solutions such as baggage management, common use terminal equipment and
kiosks, available to an even greater mass airport market. SITA estimates there is a
worldwide market of over 1,000 airports in this category with an estimated value of
$2 billion over the next five years. Five years is the typical length of an airport
IT contract.

Francesco Violante, Chief Executive Officer, SITA INC (Information Networking
Computing) said today, “We are very pleased to announce this new development in our
business strategy. Small and medium-sized airports are coming under increasing
pressure to upgrade their IT infrastructure fuelled by the on-going growth in the
numbers of people travelling.

“SITA is now reaching out to these airports in an innovative way which will allow
them to improve the passenger experience and to make better use of their facilities.
We are making state-of-the-art technology available at affordable prices through
Value Added Reseller Agreements,” he said.

SITA products and services will be offered on an Applications Service Provider-basis
which will reduce the total cost of ownership to the airports, according to
Violante, who also emphasised that SITA certified partners will deal face-to-face
with the airports concerned bringing in local expertise and providing on-site
support and maintenance.

Speaking today at a ceremony in Istanbul, Umar Khan, SITA Vice President for
Indirect Channel, announced that the first partner identified by SITA is the Turkish
aviation operations and airport construction company, TAV, which will be certified
as an exclusive reseller of SITA’s CUTE, BagManager and BagMessage products in
Turkey.

“TAV is an excellent example of the type of partner we are looking for at national
and regional level across the globe. They have a deep understanding and commitment
to air transport in Turkey and we are looking forward to providing the training and
building the competencies necessary for TAV staff to work successfully with our
products,” he said.

TAV is the operator of Istanbul Ataturk International Airport as well as other
international airports. It now has an exclusive agreement to resell SITA’s products
in Turkey.

The product set which SITA will make available under the Indirect Channel label
includes market leading IT applications such as AirportConnect CUTE, AirportConnect
Kiosk, BagManager and BagMessage.
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