A bigger umbrella for Amadeus

Published on

Friday, December 23, 2011

Written by

Andrea Zavadszky [1]

With the arrival of the internet, when airlines set up their own websites and started selling tickets to their passengers directly, there was real fear in the travel industry. Everybody was talking about the end of business for travel agents and the global distribution systems (GDS) they relied on to book flight tickets.

It was unthinkable at the time that Amadeus - a GDS provider set up by four airlines in 1987 - would actually be expanding its operations, based on a slightly modified business model in the 21st century.

Amadeus offers an integrated front end to travel agents and tour operators, where they can book hotels, airlines, cars, insurance, and other travel products. More crucially, some 10 to 15 years ago, the company decided to develop information technology (IT) systems for airlines, which is now branded as Altea.

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