Amadeus half-year performance ‘outstrips the market’

Amadeus claims to have outgrown the market in the first half of 2014, edging up its market share of travel agency air bookings.

Amadeus claims to have outgrown the market in the first half of 2014, edging up its market share of travel agency air bookings.

The Europe-based GDS and technology provider saw a 3.8% rise in air bookings through its system, boosted particularly by a 15.5% rise in north America.

Amadeus said this compared favourably to the 2.6% increase in the sector overall in the first six months of 2014, and contributed to a 0.3 percentage point increase in market share to 40.3%.

Trading for the six month period in Amadeus’ Distribution division saw revenue increase by 4.6%, to €1,271.5 million.

During the first half of 2014, Amadeus signed content agreements with 21 airlines including United Airlines.

Lowcost airline travel agency bookings were up 12%, and Amadeus signed a full content and ancillaries agreement with Germanwings, the Lufthansa budget subsidiary.

The period also saw new travel agency agreements struck with Orbitz and Tui Travel.

Amadeus’s IT Solutions division reported a revenue increase of 11.6% to 423.5 million excluding recent acquisitions Newmarket International and UFIS.

With these included in the figures, revenue grew 21%, to €459.4 million. Passengers boarded was up by 15.6% to 328.5 million.

Amadeus said growth was driven by the contribution of Asian airlines’ migration to the Amadeus Altéa platform.

Luis Maroto, President and chief executive of Amadeus, said: “Amadeus’ core business continues to deliver strong results despite improved but still challenging market conditions. 

“During the first half of the year, Amadeus reaffirmed its commitment to Corporate Travel IT – a key Distribution growth segment – with the acquisition of i:FAO, the strategic agreement with SAP and the launch of Amadeus Corporate Suite.

“The Airline IT business continued to show strong growth underpinned by the Asia Pacific region, where an agreement with Japan Airlines was recently announced, in addition to Swiss International Airlines signing for our Altéa suite.

“Also a landmark, Southwest Airlines’ first international flight powered by Amadeus Altéa suite marked the successful implementation of Amadeus’ state-of-the-art passenger service system by the carrier.

“The addition of Southwest’s domestic bookings to the agreement will turn Altéa Suite into the carrier’s only reservation system in the future and Southwest into Amadeus’ largest Airline IT partner worldwide by passengers boarded.

“We continue to implement our growth and diversification strategy into new IT areas. The recent acquisitions of Newmarket International (Hotel IT) and UFIS (Airport IT) are already contributing positively to the execution of our strategy.

“In the Rail IT segment, the agreement signed with BeNe Rail this quarter represents our first step towards the creation of a community IT platform for the rail industry, aiming to replicate the success of our Altéa suite in the coming years.”