Amadeus has been chosen by lastminute.com to launch the first online multi-carrier flight search display in a calendar format. The functionality will launch on lastminute.com’s UK and Spanish websites and be rolled out across lastminute.com’s other European sites in France, Italy and Ireland in the next two weeks, followed by Germany in the New Year.

When a lastminute.com shopper enters an outward and return date as part of a flight search, Amadeus Master Pricer Calendar returns the best available fares for the three days before and three days after the chosen dates of travel. By providing such a wide range of dates and prices in a logical, easy-to-view format, lastminute.com allows its customers to quickly make the best decision about when to travel - based on their budget and flexibility.

lastminute.com has customised Master Pricer Calendar to display the brand of each airline offering the best fare on a given day. This allows shoppers to exercise their loyalty to lastminute.com’s airline partners’ brands. The ability to customise the solution in this way is thanks to lastminute.com’s use of Amadeus’ advance application programming interface, which allows online travel agents to seamlessly access Amadeus content and services.

“We are delighted to be the pan-European launch partner for Amadeus’s new multi-carrier flight search display technology,” said Ian McCaig, CEO of lastminute.com.  “Our consumers have been asking for a flexible date shopping option that encompasses our extraordinary range of airline content. We can now offer customers more flexibility on their travel dates and a wider choice of available fares and airline options as part of one search, empowering them to more informed travel choices.”

Launched in April 1998, lastminute.com is today Europe’s leading online leisure travel retailer, operating in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Scandinavia as well as the UK and Ireland. The European business sold USD 734 million of products and services in the three months to September 2006.

“lastminute.com is clearly dedicated to developing the very best in shopping and merchandising for its customers and partners,” says Gillian Gibson, Vice President, Multinational Customer Group, Amadeus, “And our partnership has allowed both companies to significantly advance our respective offers over the years.”

Master Pricer Calendar is the second generation of Amadeus’ industry-standard low-fare search tool, Master Pricer, which handles over 170 million transactions each month. The third generation of this technology is already in development and due to be launched in 2007.
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