brochure ita airline passenger service and reservations platform
DESCRIPTION
Its a new airlines software designed by Google and is a good read if you are looking for an innovative solution for your companyTRANSCRIPT
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Airline Passenger Service & Reservations Platform
ITA Software by Google™
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Airline Platform
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Value
Platform Overview
Reservations
Inventory Control
Departure Control System
Schedule Manager
Reaccommodation
First Customer Deployment
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employees so they’re always productive, well-informed and
able to focus on servicing your customers.
Empower your customers Self-service features, intuitive graphics and flexible filters
help customers effortlessly find what they need and
independently complete the transaction — for all itinerary
changes. Automating the process and directing them
toward value-added initiatives distinguishes your airline and
service offering.
Build Loyalty Through InnovationMake it personal The extensible profile system contains passenger histories
and customer value metrics. Deliver a reliable and superior
end-to-end travel experience, complete with timely and
personalized messages and customized services that keep
customers informed, reduce the anxiety of travel, and show
them how much they’re valued.
Know your customers wellReal-time information is accessible across all components
and at every touch point via a unique central repository. It’s
a single, unified, consistent view of your customers through
all available channels, including self-service, mobile and
social media.
Merchandise and distribute your productsThe integrated, extensible profile system and advanced
merchandising system are easily configurable to your
business needs. Offer the right products and services to the
right passenger at the right time, every time. ITA’s airline
platform uses robust APIs and third-party connectivity for
merchandising across both traditional and nontraditional
channels.
Grow & Transform with EaseAdapt with modular, modern, open technologiesWith its highly configurable components, ITA’s airline
platform readily and cost-effectively adapts to the changing
needs of your business. Its service-oriented architecture
and configurable front ends make it easy to configure and
execute airline-specific business logic. All components
adapt smoothly to changes in your requirements.
Scale to support your successITA’s airline platform can scale easily and cost-effectively to
suit the needs of airlines of all sizes, providing increased
capacity and improved performance as your business
grows. The extensibility makes it easy to add new
functionality quickly, as your needs change. High levels of
automation for exchanges, irregular operations and
reaccommodation further reduce costs of operation.
Engage in strategic partnerships ITA’s airline platform provides robust interline and
codeshare messaging capabilities that will enable you to
grow your business with all of your airline partners.
Interchange messages are supported for reservations,
ticketing, checkin and all mandated government agency
interactions for international travel.
Easy to Learn & Use Train employees in two daysFamiliar browser-based interfaces make it quick and easy
for experienced or new employees to migrate from the
legacy system to the new platform. Employees can
complete training in only two days — and begin delivering
value to your customers immediately.
Empower your employees ITA’s airline platform puts efficient tools and real-time
customer data at the immediate disposal of your
Enabling the Innovative Airline ITA Software’s new airline platform makes possible the latest innovations in merchandising, self-service and partnerships. It is easy to learn, use and manage — and fully supports all network and alliance strategies. It also provides a 360º view of your customers at every touch point — letting you interact with customers at the right time, with the right offer.
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True Business OptimizationITA’s Airline Platform Value to AirlinesRESERVATIONS
• Centralizeddatarepository
• Centralized,configurablebusinesslogic
• Workflow-optimizedfrontends
• Integratedtravelcreditrepository(EBank)
INVENTORYCONTROL
• Advanced,configurableandflexibleinventorycontrol
• Integratedandcapacity-controlledoptionalservicedata
AVAILABILITY
• Advancedsetofavailabilitysolutionstostore,calculateanddistributeseatavailability
PRICING&SHOPPING
• Comprehensiveairfarepricingandshoppingcapabilitiesforrevenueandawardfares
• HighlyconfigurableXMLinterface
• ReShop™,thefirstproducttointegratesophisticatedshoppingintorepriceandreissuetransactions
REACCOMMODATION
• Flexiblereaccommodationapplicationthatoffersmultiplereprotectionoptionsbasedonconfigurableairlinebusinesslogic
• Moredetailedinformationregardingprioritystatusofimpacteditinerariesanditinerarygroups
SCHEDULEMANAGER
• Flexibleandintuitiveuserinterface
• FullyautomatedacrossallITAcomponents
DEPARTURECONTROL
• SharedinformationbetweenITADepartureControlandReservations,inrealtime
• Efficient,quickaccesskeysandone-keyoptions
WEBTECHNOLOGY
• Superiorfrontendsforallchannels,includingairlinewebsites,travelagencydistributionandcallcenteragents
• Highlyconfigurablewebplatform
• Tailoroffersbycustomerpreferenceandvalue,personalizingtheexperience,andprovideuniformityacrossallcustomertouchpoints
• Rapidlyandcost-effectivelymodifythesystemasyourbusinessevolves
• Improveproductivityandturnserviceagentsintosalesagents
• Provideflexible,alternativepaymentoptions
• Inventoryandsellanycombinationofproductsandservices
• Merchandisemoreeffectivelyandincreaseancillaryrevenues
• Handleallofyouravailabilityneeds,regardlessofvolume,whilesignificantlyloweringcostperquery
• Providethemostcompetitiveandcomprehensiveshoppingandsearchcapabilitiesavailable
• Efficientlymakechangesandrapidlyrespondtoshiftingmarketconditions
• Automatetherecalculationofunder-orover-paymentsandtheapplicationofwaiverrulesandpenalties
• Rapidlyreprotectpassengersandstreamlineairportoperationsduringunplannedevents
• Prioritizeaffectedpassengersbycustomervalue
• Easilymodify,addordeleteflightsforplannedchangestothescheduleorreactivechangescausedbyirregularoperations
• Enablereal-timeupdatesandnotificationsofchanges
• Deliveramorepersonalizedandsuperiorairportexperiencewhethercustomersinteractdirectlywithyouragentsoruseself-servicetoolslikekiosks,mobileapplicationsoronlinesites
• Significantlyreduceagenttransactiontimes
• Provideconsistencyacrossallchannels
• Createsignificantefficiencythroughintuitiveuserinterfacesandfilters
• Rapidlyimplementnewecommerceprograms
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GUIsInventory ControlSchedule Manager Reaccommodation
Call CenterAirport Clients
WebsitesMobile
Agent Portal
XML APIPublic standards-based service bus
Reservations Reaccommodation
InventoryControl
ScheduleManager
DepartureControl
QPX™Pricing,
Shopping, & Availability
Solution
Central Data RepositoryShared information across all ITA airline platform components, in real time
Airline Platform OverviewITA Software’s airline platform uses modular technology that makes it easier to change the system as your airline’s needs change. It is comprised of highly configurable components that include: Reservations, Departure Control, Inventory Control, Schedule Manager, and Reaccommodation. All components have a modern user interface that make them easy to learn and use. And the platform is built to scale, so it can support airlines of all sizes — from small regional airlines to global network carriers with complex alliance membership needs.
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Reservations delivers a flexible set of
reservation features for all of your distribution channels.
It also provides booking agents with relevant and more
detailed information about their customers in real time.
It significantly reduces the time it takes for customer
service agents and customers to shop, book and ticket
reservations, and offers many industry-leading shopping
components and features to make them more efficient.
Inventory Control allows you to inventory
and sell any combination of products and services you
can envision. And because it is so simple to define and
combine inventoried attributes, you can respond to
changing market conditions on demand.
Departure Control allows you to efficiently
guide customers through all airport passenger flows –
whether the customer chooses to interact directly with
an airline employee or utilize a self-service kiosk. Agents
are able to provide a more personalized, superior airport
experience for each customer using intuitive interfaces,
efficiency-creating tools, rich customer insights stored in
the Reservations component and advanced automation
support for operations such as refund/reissue or IROP
exchanges.
Schedule Manager allows your employees
to easily modify, add or delete flights – whether it be a
planned change to the schedule or a reactionary change
caused by irregular operations. Change notifications are
automatically messaged to all appropriate internal and
external systems, and other ITA airline platform
components.
Reaccommodation empowers customer
service agents and support operation employees to
determine the best way to manage the reprotection
process. It offers an automated option based on
configurable airline business logic that rebooks affected
passengers onto alternate itineraries, a manual
reprotection option or a hybrid of the two – combining
airline-defined logic with ITA’s premier airfare pricing and
shopping system, QPX™.
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Reservations Innovation & Efficiency at Every Customer Touch Point
ITA Reservations provides a flexible set of reservation
features that let you deliver superior service and an
improved customer experience – regardless of the
distribution channel. Easy to learn and use interfaces
create efficiencies for your agents and keep the focus on
the needs of the traveler.
For a comprehensive customer-centered approach, ITA
created a uniquely integrated customer profile database
that lets you tailor promotions, services and offers for
individual travelers and their companions. With ITA
Reservations, you can provide better service while greatly
increasing ancillary revenues – and ultimately create
more satisfied travelers.
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Reservations Component Highlights
AdvancedProfile
& TravelCredit
• Intuitive, easy-to-learn interfaces drastically reduce training time, improve efficiency and allow customer service agents to focus on the passenger instead of the transaction
• Advanced customer profile information and airline configurable customer value calculations enable improved customer service and targeted promotions to increase revenue
Intelligent and flexible customer value metrics (used in seating, reaccommodation, upgrade requests and others)
Future and past booking details
Preferences of the passenger and their companions
Built-in, integrated travel credit repository (EBank) stores credit for future purchases
Agent remarks and customer history
• Stores customer data in a central repository, making it easy to integrate and access information about the customer
• Supports all merchandising models, including integrated and capacity-controlled optional services and branded fares
• Leverages ITA’s comprehensive airfare pricing and shopping system, QPX™
Supports single or multiple airline searches, including shopping-led, availability-led, groups and employee travel
Includes QPX ReShop™, automating and simplifying refunds and exchanges
Includes ITA Reward Shopping, replacing time-consuming redemption processes with a superb award shopping experience
Supports all traditional requirements for PNR management such as names and contact information, passenger and segment data types, SSR and OSI information, large party bookings, remarks and history, and more
• Supports all advanced payment options, including multiple forms of payment per passenger or for an entire group, and a complete electronic ticketing module
• Includes sophisticated role-based controls and configurable business logic based on airline rules and processes
• Fully supports codeshare partners, airline alliances and distribution partners
• Interfaces to credit card authorization and settlement providers, revenue accounting systems and other airline internal systems that interoperate with the reservations component
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Inventory Control Tomorrow’s Sales Strategies – Today
ITA Inventory Control acts as a single authoritative source
of seat availability that works hand in hand with your
revenue management department. It is composed of two
fully integrated, high-speed, scalable systems known as
DACS® (Dynamic Availability Calculating System) and ICS
(Inventory Control Server).
ITA’s unique approach gives you the freedom to inventory
control anything you want while achieving significant cost
savings from reduced query volumes on your legacy host
systems.
Because it is highly adaptable and fully supports
advanced revenue management methods, you can
easily modify your merchandising models to meet
changing business needs and customer demands.
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• Lets airlines inventory and sell any combination of products or services (seat selection, meals, pillows, overhead bins, pets on board and more)
• Supports advanced revenue management and O&D strategies (bid price/gradient model and bid price curve/bid price vector models)
• Includes two high-speed, scalable systems
DACS, ITA’s Dynamic Availability Calculating System, handles seamless availability queries, manages availability and sales business logic, and is capable of supporting billions of queries per second
ICS, ITA’s inventory Control Server, manages flight records and booking count for all inventoried items, easily integrating with revenue management
• Fully supports all IATA recommended practices, including AVS, NAVS, seamless polling, married segments and journey control logic, and POS controls
• Accommodates mappings of booking codes by leg, segment, O&D controls, JCL, POS/channel, flight range, date, operating and marketing carrier, and more
• Offers configurable nesting structures, variable by market, geographic region, flight number, flight range, date and more
• Enables flexible aircraft and seat configurations
All aircraft types supported (mainline, codeshare and more)
Seat configurations and AU for more than 100,000 seats
Multi-cabins support (i.e. cabins within cabins, moveable curtains, cross-cabin inventory)
Multiple inventory configurations per aircraft type
• Integrates seamlessly with revenue management systems and varying revenue management data such as:
Leg-level parameters (i.e. bid prices or bucket levels)
Market values from tables or from live fare selection with market value adjustments
Point of Sale (POS) business logic
Proration information
Trip logic
Codeshare availability
Other custom data, as needed
• Includes user-friendly, intuitive graphical user interface for route controllers to easily modify inventory manually and adjust selling levels to promote/restrict sales
• Includes sophisticated role-based controls and configurable business logic based on airline rules and processes
Inventory Control Component Highlights
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ITAInventoryControlServer
ITADynamic
AvailabilityCalculating
System
ITAAirline
Platform
CarrierRevenue
ManagementSystem
GDS
ITA QPX™
OA
OTA&
Metasearch
ITA DACS™Dynamic
AvailabilityCalculating
System
ITA InventoryControl Server
AVS/NAVS/MASand/or Seamless
RM Loop
Waitlist ClearanceTriggering
Booking
Inventory Control System ArchitectureThe ITA Inventory Control Server (ICS) works in harmony with your existing revenue management system to ensure inventory changes are up-to-date and airline policies are enforced. ITA DACS distributes availability at high speed to all your channels with sophisticated point of sale controls, ensuring search result accuracy. As an integrated system, ITA’s Inventory Control makes certain that what you intend to sell is what is offered and sold.
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Departure ControlA More Personalized, Superior Customer Experience
ITA Departure Control lets you efficiently guide
customers through airport checkin and boarding flows,
without ever losing focus on what’s most important: the
satisfaction of your passengers.
Full, real-time access to passenger information and
histories is always available at all touch points, and
intelligent and flexible customer value metrics assist you
in identifying and servicing your most valuable
customers.
With ITA Departure Control, you can deliver a
personalized and superior airport experience whether
your customer interacts directly with an agent or uses
self-service tools like kiosks, mobile applications and
online sites.
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Departure Control Component Highlights
• Modern, intuitive interfaces reduce training time and let agents focus on the passenger, while quickly guiding them through the airport
• Unique, shared database for reservations and departure control
Eliminates data transfer or duplication between systems by using a single database for all travel-related information
Provides agents with full passenger and reservation system information
Integrates customer profile information such as individual and companion preferences and configurable customer value metrics
• Enables automated or agent-driven management of seating, upgrades, standbys, denied boarding, disruption and passenger reaccommodation based on customer priority and preference information
• Integrates seamlessly with ITA’s Reaccommodation component to automatically or manually reprotect passengers
• Interoperates with third-party systems such as IATCI thru checkin, Electronic Ticketing (ETK), Baggage systems (BSM, BRS, BTM) and more
• Supports domestic and international government document checks and enforcement
• Supports common use certified clients: ARINC, SITA, Ultra, AirIT, RESA and more
• Supports commonly used boarding pass and bag tag printers and scanners, for efficient checkin and boarding operation
• Enables 100% self-service via kiosks, including disruption management
• Includes sophisticated role-based controls and configurable business logic based on airline rules and processes
FlexibleSeat
Assignment
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FlexibleSeat
Assignment
EfficientDepartureControlManagement
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Schedule ManagerAutomated & Integrated Flight Schedule Management
The user-friendly ITA Schedule Manager makes it easy
to modify, add and delete flights for planned schedule
changes or irregular operations changes.
Fully automated and integrated with all components, ITA
Schedule Manager can proactively designate, store and
process protection preferences for passengers affected
by flight cancellations.
ITA Schedule Manager significantly increases efficiencies,
reducing costs associated with both planned and
unforeseen schedule changes while improving passenger
satisfaction.
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Fast &Easy Leg
Additions
• Stores, maintains and processes schedule data and schedule change requests, including SSIM, ASM and manual updates
• Provides automatic, real-time updates such as schedule change messages, seat map updates, passenger reaccommodation, seat assignments and SSRs to all ITA airline platform components, airline internal systems and specified external systems
Includes automatic attachment of appropriate seat map
Initializes the inventory record for newly created flights
Transmits airline SSMs to GDSs and OALs
• User-friendly interfaces make it easy to modify, add or delete flights
• Supports all industry-standard messaging, including communication with GDSs and OALs
• Allows the input of preferred flights and designation of preferred protection for cancelled flights
• Includes configurable business logic based on airline rules and processes
Schedule Manager Component Highlights
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Fast &Easy Leg
Additions
EfficientScheduleEdits
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ReaccommodationEmpowered Employees & Simplified Reaccommodation Management
ITA Reaccommodation efficiently automates
reaccommodation for your schedule changes and day-of
operation flight changes, based on airline-defined
business logic and customer value metrics.
Configurable, intuitive interfaces enable quick
determination of the priority and status for impacted
itineraries and itinerary groups. This allows support
operation employees and airport agents to quickly and
easily determine the best way to manage the
reaccommodation process.
With ITA Reaccommodation, you will benefit from more
informed and empowered employees, faster and better
resolutions and happier passengers.
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Reaccommodation Component Highlights
• Automates reaccommodation for schedule changes and day-of-operation flight changes
• Provides three options for reprotecting passengers
Automatic reaccommodation and repair of itineraries
Manual, using prespecified protection flights
Allow agents to search for and select new flights and itineraries with a comprehensive airfare pricing and shopping system, QPX™
• Prioritizes need to reaccommodate individual customers and customer groups using intelligent, configurable customer value metrics
• Intuitive graphical interfaces simplify the reprotection process for departure control and support opera-tion employees
• Dynamic dashboard displays information and lets agents work reprotection process by:
Affected flight
Time to journey departure
Type of schedule change
Customer values
Market
• Gives airlines flexibility to configure business logic for:
Reaccommodation triggers, including updates from SSIM, ASM, FLIFO and custom triggers
Replacement or protection flight search parameters
Customer value based on factors such as: frequent flyer status, SSRs, booking codes, destinations and others
• Follows IATA standards when reissuing tickets for reaccommodated itineraries
• Once new itinerary is selected, system automatically:
Rebooks itinerary and special services (SSRs)
Retickets and reassigns seats
Refunds unavailable optional services for new itineraries
Notifies customer for airline-owned bookings
Sends ASC messages for GDS/OAL-owned bookings
• Offers uniquely integrated ITA Reservations, Departure Control, Inventory Control and Schedule Manager components
Provides real-time notice of changes to agents in the call center via ITA’s Reservations component and takes care of customer notifications
Lets agents quickly filter and review detailed information about changes and history of the PNR
• Quickly and accurately calculates compensation in the form of payment designated by the airline business rules, including monetary, credit, customer care vouchers and ITA’s integrated travel credit repository (EBank)
IntegratedCustomer
ValueMetrics
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IntegratedCustomer
ValueMetrics
ComprehensiveReaccommodationDashboard
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Cape Air & ITA by GoogleMaking History & Delighting Travelers
On Friday evening, February 24, 2012, Cape Air
employees took a leap into the future — launching a
brand new airline passenger service and reservations
platform — and taking their place on the pages of history.
Cape Air is one of the largest independent regional
airlines in the United States, carrying 650,000
passengers annually to more than 40 destinations.
They make 850 non-stop daily flights and 130,000
flights each year. They’re entrepreneurial, agile, and
have all the sophisticated needs of large network
carriers — codeshares, interline agreements, domestic
and international markets, and distribution through
multiple channels — making them the ideal launch
partner.
In a matter of hours the Cape Air and ITA by Google
teams switched from the old reservations system to
ITA’s new airline platform. They turned off Cape’s old
system, put a closed notice on the passenger website,
halted all communications with Cape partners and
brought up ITA’s new platform. With the flip of a switch
they reestablished all links with Cape Air partners,
migrated the last bits of customer data and made sure
the Cape Air websites and airport stations were open
for business. Cape’s first flights departed on time
Saturday morning.
The new airline platform was built entirely from scratch
using modern, modular, scalable technologies. It
contains all the components a passenger airline needs
to run their business: reservations, ticketing, inventory
control, schedules, reaccommodation, departure con-
trol, payment processing, customer communications,
messaging to partner airlines and distribution partners,
airport checkin and boarding, and more.
Immediately, the new platform allowed Cape Air
customers to effortlessly shop for one-way, round-trip
and multi-city flights and fares — online and anywhere
in the Cape Air network. Self-service tools made it fast
and easy for customers to change their itineraries
online. And, a suite of flexible reservation and
departure control features ensured the booking flow
and passenger boarding process ran smoothly — for
both customers and Cape Air agents.
We look forward to the next big wave of success that
the Cape Air and ITA by Google teams will achieve.
“It was about the smoothest technology rollout I’ve ever seen. It went so smoothly that customers probably didn’t even notice.”
DANWOLF,Founder&CEOofCapeAir
“The platform from ITA Software by Google allowed our workers to be easily trained within days, not weeks. Its design allowed us to tailor the setup to our needs.”
LISAKIELE,VicePresidentofCapeAir
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Notes
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www.itasoftware.com©2012 ITA Software by Google™
ITA Software (www.itasoftware.com) is a provider of leading-edge solutions for the travel
industry. ITA’s QPX™, a comprehensive airfare shopping system, powers leading airlines
and travel distributors worldwide including Alaska Airlines, Alitalia, American Airlines,
Bing, Hotwire, Kayak, Orbitz, Southwest Airlines, TripAdvisor, United Airlines, US Airways,
Virgin Atlantic Airways, and others. ITA offers a modern airline passenger reservation
system to improve the end-to-end customer experience and to revolutionize the airline
industry. In April 2011, ITA finalized its acquisition and is now a wholly-owned subsidiary
of Google. ITA was founded by computer scientists from MIT and is headquartered in
Cambridge, Mass., USA.
Corporate Headquarters
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