Southwest Airlines Completes Transition to Amadeus Altéa Reservation System

Southwest Airlines and Amadeus IT Group recently jointly announced the American carrier’s transition to the Amadeus Altéa Passenger Service System (PSS). At 101 airports across nine countries, all Southwest domestic and international flights are now managed through Altéa functionality, giving the carrier more flexibility to improve the Customer Experience and enhance revenue performance.

According to an announcement, during the course of three years, a team of more than 1,500 people from both Southwest and Amadeus collaborated to bring together multiple reservation system capabilities onto one common platform under the Altéa Suite of products.

The new reservation system brings an array of features designed to allow Southwest to: optimize its flight schedule, including improved connection times; more easily manage inventory between any given origin and destination; govern the value of potential ancillary services; and automate rebookings during flight disruptions, such as those caused by extreme weather and other operational challenges.

Southwest expects the new reservation system to generate approximately $500 million in incremental annual earnings before interest and taxes by 2020 through added functionality and operational capabilities.

“Transitioning to a single reservation system is a transformational milestone for Southwest, and in fact, it’s the single largest technology initiative in our company’s history,” said Gary Kelly, Southwest Airlines Chairman & CEO. “Our deepening partnership with Amadeus makes way for a bright future through new tools that empower our People to do what they do best, which is to provide world famous Hospitality.”

As part of the ongoing partnership, the carrier began operating international flights through Amadeus Altéa PSS beginning in July 2014. On Dec. 6, 2016, Southwest continued to streamline operations into more of the Altéa Suite by channelling bookings beyond May 8, 2017, through a single reservation system.

“Southwest is the largest carrier of passengers within the United States, and we are delighted they entrusted Amadeus with developing the new cornerstone of its business,” said Luis Maroto, President and CEO, Amadeus. “We pride ourselves in developing innovative and customized technologies to help our airline partners adapt and evolve their products to reflect the needs of travellers, and we are proud to be collaborating with this leading U.S. airline.”

Teams for both companies continue to work behind the scenes and on the ground in several of the carrier’s locations to support this transformational change, an announcement said.