Amadeus this week announced that its annual revenue increased 2.2 percent to €2.86 billion in 2008 as the privately held travel technology and distribution company implemented a new airline IT system, expanded its focus in the Americas and launched its new Airline Retailing Platform.
President and CEO David Jones noted that much of the company's net gains came in the first half of the year. "Amadeus' business showed a reassuring degree of resilience against the extraordinary financial and trading environment of the second half of last year," Jones said in a statement. "2008 was very much a year of two halves: a very strong first-year performance combined with the well-documented collapse in demand in the last six months meant we ended the year about level with 2007."
The second-half decreases have carried over into 2009 as travel agency bookings decreased 9.1 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2008. Travelport GDS's total first-quarter segments decreased 16 percent to 90.4 million
(BTNonline, May 8).
Amadeus' total travel bookings for full-year 2008 decreased 2.1 percent to 526.6 million, while air bookings made by agencies slightly increased 0.6 percent to 364.2 million.
Hotel bookings made through the Amadeus GDS increased 4.4 percent to more than €2.2 billion in 2008 as the company increased its inventory to more than 80,000 properties.
Online booking tool Amadeus E-Travel Management increased revenues by 44 percent last year as bookings increased by 60 percent.
Amadeus' Altéa Customer Management Solution, which saw significant market traction in 2008, processed 193 million passengers. Thirteen airlines migrated to the system in 2008 and 14 more made deals for future implementation, according to the company.
In Europe, the company has signed 44 airlines to a three-year full content program it launched last year, growing the number of airlines who have signed content-guarantee agreements to 131.
Amadeus also aggressively pushed into the agency market in the Americas following senior management changes including tapping IBM's Dwayne Ingram to build a new team and strategy for its multinational customer group in the region
(BTNonline, Aug. 11)In September, the company entered into an agreement to provide Latin America's largest travel agency group, L'AllianXa Travel Network, with mid-office products and services for the network's 90 members in 18 countries in the region, according to this week's announcement.