Qantas to Amadeus – what the hell was that???!?

In 2007 Amadeus and Qantas were riding high. A joy filled press release heralded that their relationship would bloom for another ten years. The then CIO John Willett was full of praise saying

"The development of Altéa [Amadeus' airline customer management system], which has become the leading customer management solution for airlines, has been a milestone for the industry and we expect that the next 10 years will help us to innovate further,"

A year later there was a new CIO at Qantas (Jamila Gordon) and the good times continued. The companies announced that the Altéa system was fully implemented. Gordon was filled with the joy and expectation that can only be found in press releases

"Exceptional customer service is a key competitive weapon and you can only deliver this by understanding the needs of individuals which is what the integrated Altéa system provides." She added, "As the operating environment for airlines gets tougher, it is essential that technology is able to both deliver greater operational efficiency as well as support the implementation of policies that build customer loyalty and drive increased revenues."

Remember those words “deliver greater operational efficiency”.

Fast forward to Jan 3 2010 and the Amadeus and Qantas bromance took a blow (though it does not look fatal) when the Amadeus Altéa system appeared to suffer a world wide hour long blue screen of death crash-a-doodle-do. Automated check-in came crashing down. Customers were stuck and airline crews abused. Qantas firstly called it “intermittent” (SMH) . But later an ABC commentator found out that the system had crashed on three separate occasions during the outage period. Delays, angry customers and twitter rant–a-thons ensued.

Unlike the PR love-ins of the previous announcements, Qantas was very happy to very publicly blame the whole thing on Amadeus. Newly appointed Qantas spokesman David Epstein used all of the tact that his former Labour party bosses are famous for by being very polite in his finger pointing but stating clearly and cleanly

"We are seeking assurances this won't happen again,"

(according to a report from the ABC)

The Herald Sun very neatly summed up the response from Amadeus to the blame game “Amadeus could not be reached for comment”. I bet they couldn’t.

Thanks to Aaron Frutman over at Flickr for the phot of Kobe in flight

Martin Colling, the Bow tie, Travel inspiration, lunch and the real Madrid

I was in Madrid for work a few weeks back. It was a classic case of business travel that sounds amazing - "a week of work in Madrid" (especially to my Australian based friends) - but where reality was far from the hype. I was staying at the Eurostars Madrid Tower, a five star hotel in the newish "Cuatro Torres" area of Madrid (pictured here). A new commercial part of the city disconnected from the heart. Imagine an area of Madrid like a Chatswood or junior La Defense or Repulse Bay (depending on your city of reference). You understand what a I mean - a soulless place close to, but not close enough to, a vibrant global capital.

Result was that we spent the entire time in the 30 story hotel or on a bus or in a dining room. There was one moment were I dashed across the multi-lane or mini highway in front of the hotel and found a local bar to have a coffee in. Other than that I could have been anywhere on the planet.

The work was very productive but the non-work highlight was a lunch with Amadeus' Head of Airline Robotics - Martin Colling. As well as working for Amadeus, Martin has an airline industry blog called "the Shearwater Blog" (what is it about Amadeus people and blogging??).

Martin and I had a great lunch together. The sun was shining and after a week of corporate meals we were outside in a local "joint" for a menu del dia. I finally felt like I was in Spain rather than Hotelland. I enjoyed the conversation too. With Martin's day job focused on Airline sales and ancillary revenue our conversation quickly turned to online sales for airlines and following the recent themes on the BOOT to travel discover and inspiration. We talked at length about all of the activities that a customer engages in on and offline before making an booking and after making a booking. The inspiration, research and collaboration before and the additional planning, sharing, reminiscing and repeating that goes on afterwards. Martin has just published a post on his thoughts on this area (with a heavy airline slant) called "Using a Bow Tie to Make Optimal Marketing and Technology Investments". It is the BOOT's recommended read of the week.

thanks to Pulsarin over at flickr for the photo

More on CWT France to move from Amadeus from Sabre

Quick update on recent post on CWT France moving their GDS contract from Amadeus to Sabre. An industry insider from Europe sent me a few info pieces to add to the rumours around this migration. Story is that the migration has been in the works since as early as late 2006 - under the secret project name "Project Score". There have been commercials issues for the delay from then until know but (as is often the case) there are some technology issues. Looks like there was/is some work to be done between Sabre and SNCF that has been problematic. This all conjecture and innuedo but adds to a great story.

Any Amadeus or Sabre officials out there wish to comment?

One year later - a BOOT rumour comes true. Carlson Wagonlit in France (starts) to move from Amadeus to Sabre

The world of GDS is never that fast moving so it is probably no surprise that a GDS rumour that I spread in July 2007 has taken until Oct 2008 to come true. Back then I predicted that Amadeus would lose Carlson Wagonlit in France to Sabre. Well that "Scoop" is now confirmed as true (here is French news story from earlier this month). Of course in saying that the article says that the deal is "still not official" but that "testing is about to start" (my translation) .

This aritcle is about 4 weeks old. Anyone out there have access to something more recent?