Amadeus, a leading technology partner for the global travel industry, announced an agreement today with Icelandair, a customer-oriented airline and travel service company serving 31 gateways in Europe, the USA and Canada, to develop a baggage reconciliation system, Amadeus Airport BRS, capable of offering real-time, automated loading, tracking and management of baggage.
As launch partner, Icelandair will deploy this solution as of mid-2014 on all its worldwide flights handled from its hub at Keflavik International Airport.
The new solution, which is fully integrated into the Amadeus Airport IT portfolio and the Altéa DCS platform, will simplify existing baggage processes, as all data required to manage baggage will be available via a user-friendly application interface located in Amadeus’ Data Centre. This interface will improve overall accuracy and speed, ensuring faster turn-around and departure times for all handled flights.
Today, the majority of ground handlers globally use teletype messages to manage all baggage processes. This involves sending numerous digital messages back and forth to process all baggage activities including checking in, tracking and loading baggage to an aircraft. Amadeus Airport BRS would greatly reduce the dependency on using these messages, thus providing substantial cost savings.
Ástþór Ingason, vice-president, ground operations at Icelandair commented: "We have realised a remarkable vision with Amadeus’ baggage technology. Not only will we save on the heavy costs of complex teletype messaging technology, but will gain baggage handling accuracy thanks to its full automation and real-time processing.
The repercussions will be immediately felt by all stakeholders in our hub, including passengers, who can expect an improvement in punctuality and quicker baggage delivery, while ground handlers will have a much more efficient and user-friendly system, it’s a win-win for all."
John Jarrell, head of airport IT, Amadeus said: "We are delighted to join forces in the development of this solution with our launch customer Icelandair. Our BRS solution will offer key baggage functionalities in a simple, plug-and-play application, enabling visible cost and time savings not just to Icelandair, but to the whole airport ecosystem.
"We are confident this will only be the beginning of the solution’s success and we look forward to developing it further with valuable feedback from our launch customer."