Trivandrum, India, 07 February, 2006: Air New Zealand has successfully implemented iFly, IBS Software Services’ new generation solution for managing staff travel requirements of airlines. iFly is a new generation web-based business solution for managing all airline staff travel requirements. Air New Zealand, the launch customer for iFly, entered into an agreement with IBS to implement iFly in September 2005.

Travel concessions are one of the most sought after benefits for airline staff. iFly handles both leisure travel and duty travel requirements of airline staff and supports everything from generic interfaces to airline reservation systems, HR and payroll systems. iFly facilitates a self service environment for staff to use concessions and make bookings directly, conforming to all travel regulations and entitlements.

The CIO of Air New Zealand Mr. Alastair Grigg said, "After a comprehensive evaluation process, we selected the IBS solution for staff travel because it meets both our technical and functional requirements and also due to IBS’s experience as a solutions provider in the airline domain. Selecting the staff travel system was an important decision because this would be one of the few applications to be used by virtually every employee of the airline around the globe." He further added, "IBS provided a professional and very capable project team who demonstrated their ability to understand our unique business challenges and customise the iFly system to meet these".

According to VK Mathews, CMD, IBS Group, "Air New Zealand is a strategic account for us in the Asia Pacific region and we are extremely pleased with this success. Staff travel automation is a niche area with potential for savings for the airline and we want to be market leaders in this segment. iFly helps airlines to reduce costs of staff travel management, while at the same time improving employee productivity and internal service levels. The response from the airlines has been very encouraging and we will hear many more success stories of iFly implementations in the coming months. The product guarantees a well-established return on investment and a payback period of less than twelve months."

iFly helps to centralise staff travel administration. The rules manager, which forms the heart of system, helps the airline to define its specific staff travel rules. Developed as a generic solution, iFly can fully accommodate any future changes to staff travel policies. The airline staff can create / change the bookings for their travel directly using web-based interfaces at their convenience.