How Amadeus wants airlines to transition to modern distribution

Amadeus has laid out the next steps in its vision for airline retailing, which will require a major transformation in airline systems. 

The distribution company is calling it Nevio and said that while a year ago the airline industry was talking about the why of modern airline retailing, the conversation has moved to the how.

Cyril Tetaz, executive vice president for airline solutions and travel unit at Amadeus, described Nevio as “making the commitment formally” to help transform the industry across offer, order and delivery while improving the customer experience.

“We talked about the foundations and where we want to go, but we didn’t have a name. We’ve made a lot of progress in the past 12 months so we’re going out there in the market and officially launching our new airline portfolio. The primary focus is to help airlines become better retailers, and we also have the traveler very much in mind. We see space for making the whole customized experience better from the moment shopping happens with better recognition of who the traveler is. It’s going to be about simplifying airline passenger processes as well, leveraging open architecture and cloud technologies and looking at it very much in a holistic way.”

He added that it’s a business transformation for airlines “because the moment you think holistically, you can’t think in terms of it replacing, or changing Lego blocks or capabilities in one area, like offer or order. It is truly an end-to-end transformation that the airline will have to take on board.”

Finnair was the first customer signed by Amadeus last year to embark on the transformation, and the carrier has since put a target of the end of 2025 to be in modern digital distribution.

Bridges to modern distribution

IATA’s new distribution capability technology standard is one capability within Nevio, which is designed to be modular, but airlines don’t necessarily have to have developed NDC to start working on moving away from other elements hampering the move to more modern distribution - tickets, passenger name record (PNR) and electronic miscellaneous document (EMD).

“Essentially that’s how we’re going to transform, that and adding the opportunity to create offers in a much more dynamic way, which will then be powered by NDC so essentially they’re complementary,” said Tetaz.

Amadeus is relying heavily on cloud technology to make this work as well as working with partners including Accenture, IBM and TCS, giving them access to its technology to help airlines “accelerate the transformation.”

Tetaz said he has seen increased interest from airlines of all sizes in the past year and that there is traction. 

“A year ago we were talking about the why. Why do we want to do this? Why should airlines consider it? Now, it’s really about the how. How can we make it happen? Where do we start? How should we pace the transition?”

But with the majority of airline passengers made up of infrequent travelers, it might seem like a huge investment and upheaval for airlines.

“It starts with recognizing travelers for who they really are and having better access to data. Because we’re moving to cloud-based architecture, we’re going to be able to capture the data in real time, connect it together and apply screening capabilities to understand what is happening. The airline as it understands the traveler context better will be able to build better and more relevant offers and be able to dynamically manage those offers.”

He stressed the need to tackle the transformation holistically because it’s not only about offer and order but the delivery of the service.

Single order record

“Why do we need a check-in window? Why do we need a boarding pass? Why do we need yet another record? If we have an order record which encapsulates everything - replacing ticket, PNR, EMD - why can’t we use that order record as the basis to fly you?”

He added order record will be more future proof than current processes and that Amadeus already has a trial product with Microsoft Azure and an airline customer with the ticket, PNR and EMD being translated into a single order record.

“It has more legs, more mileage, because think about the scenario where you’re packaging an offer that is built from what the airline offers, what the partners offer and what a third-party offers. All this will land in a single record. That record will be cascaded to the partners for delivery. If there’s change, everybody will be aware of it. If you have a disruption, what you want, and what we aim to do, is to be able to reaccommodate the entirety of the trip.”

In addition to working with Microsoft and its cloud capabilities, Amadeus is also tapping into its data capabilities via Azure.

“If an airline decides to host its crew app, which is not provided by Amadeus, in Azure, we still want to create a bridge so that the data flows between offer, order and delivery system to the crew system.”

Generative artificial intelligence pilots are a further strand of the relationship with Microsoft that airlines are taking advantage of.

“We’re experimenting in a lot of areas. One thing we’re doing is a pilot with one airline customer to adjust dynamically the landing page on the website depending on the inquiries the customer is making and embedding real-time pricing data and offers based on the inquiry made.”

As airlines make significant decisions about how they modernize their retailing capabilities, there will also be concerns about support for existing technology such as passenger service systems (PSS).

Why do we need a check-in window? Why do we need a boarding pass? Why do we need yet another record? If we have an order record which encapsulates everything - replacing ticket, PNR, EMD - why can’t we use that order record as the basis to fly you?

Cyril Tetaz

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But, said Tetaz, Amadeus is committed to invest in and support its Altea PSS and plans to develop “smart bridging” to link Nevio and Altea.

“If a customer is on Altea and wants to go to Nevio we need to make sure there’s a bridge and we can translate, in real-time, the PNR, EMD and ticket into an order, and vice versa.” 

Regarding the elements of Nevio in place and what needs to be developed, Tetaz talked in terms of having “the capabilities that create a runway to modern retailing and Amadeus Nevio. We talked about digital, we talked about NDC, dynamic pricing for flight and ancillary is there, we have MVP for order in production in Azure.”

He added that next year it would be possible to create an offer and an order from the airline digital channel with the same capability extended to the NDC channel in early 2025.

Prioritizing the airline channel over the NDC channel is about “business continuity and more to be able to pace the change to avoid exposing 100% of the airline channel at one point,” according to Tetaz who added that it would be a difference of a few months.

And the main challenge to all these steps towards modern distribution? Tetaz believes it’s carriers not treating it as a business transformation. 

“They’re going to have to take on board that this is going to require they change business processes, how they’re organized, how teams are working. And, it’s not only about technology. If you want to be successful you have to think really end-to-end so the biggest challenge is to look at it as a business transformation and not as an IT replacement.”