SITA to enable required business transformation as Royal Jordanian seeks to join oneworld alliance

SITA will provide the airline with Horizon, a complete solution to enable interoperability with all the other alliance partners through a number of products and solutions including the SITA Departure Control System (DCS), e-ticketing, (enabling it to become compliant with IATA's 2007 100% e-ticketing goal), expanded distribution through the Royal Jordanian web-site, and sophisticated pricing and revenue management tools.

Mr Samer El-Majali, CEO and President of Royal Jordanian, said:

"There were some key elements in deciding why we chose SITA Horizon portfolio - not least its E-commerce solution. Such products will increase our ability to reduce our cost base and increase our yield. It was critical also that SITA could enable us to be oneworld compliant."

Royal Jordanian is expanding rapidly and currently flies to 53 destinations across five continents carrying almost two million passengers per year. Amman is to become the oneworld hub of the Middle East.

Richard Stokes, SITA's Senior Vice-President for Passenger and Travel Solutions, said; "This move by Royal Jordanian to buy our Horizon portfolio is further confirmation that airlines are looking for straightforward solutions to simplifying their distribution and prefer a holistic approach to the challenges of optimizing yield while offering state-of-the-art shopping tools to the consumer. SITA now offers an unbeatable one-stop shop to address all these complex issues from on-line distribution to revenue management."

Royal Jordanian's compliance with oneworld alliance standards required the implementation of e-ticketing and connectivity to the SITA DCS, as well the renewal of the SITA Reservations system. SITA will establish connectivity with all oneworld carriers.

The airline will benefit from the reduced costs of online distribution while also improving customer service through its own web site. SITA's Airfare Shop application will provide the airline's customers with significantly enhanced shopping capability.