Landmark agreement, including both Kastrup and Roskilde airports, will provide IT foundation to support Copenhagen’s vision to become the leading air transport hub for Northern Europe.
The airports will adopt a wide range of Amadeus solutions replacing their current Air Traffic System, including a cloud-based AODB and RMS, hosted entirely off-site.
Copenhagen Airports, the company that owns and operates the Copenhagen airports of Kastrup and Roskilde, has chosen Amadeus as a long-term IT partner. This strategic partnership, in which Amadeus will provide Copenhagen Airports with next-generation cloud-based technology, will provide far reaching benefits including an improved operational performance and customer experience.
The agreement will see nine Amadeus solutions being implemented to replace the current Air Traffic System, transforming operations across a diverse range of areas:
- Airport Collaborative Decision Making Portal: enables all partners at the airport such as airlines, ground handlers and refueling companies to access a common portal and consistent operational information, thus greatly improving operational efficiency and situational awareness.
- Airport Operational Database (AODB): acts as the central ‘brain’ for the airport. The cloud-based AODB will provide real-time, consistent and timely information to all stakeholders and systems. Copenhagen’s new AODB will be hosted off-site, removing the need for any local infrastructure. It will be delivered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which by design simplifies IT systems and reduces the complexities of systems integration between siloed stakeholders and data providers.
- Baggage Reconciliation System (BRS): an innovative reconciliation solution which matches real-time passenger, flight and baggage data from check-in until flight departure. Moving to Amadeus’ BRS will enable Copenhagen to retire three legacy BRS systems and ensure 100% baggage reconciliation.
These solutions are in addition to the Amadeus Airport Fixed Resource Management Solution (RMS), which was developed jointly with Copenhagen Airports, and deployed last year. With an advanced method of capturing stakeholder information, the cloud-based RMS offers the best possible recommendations on how to allocate fixed airport resources such as stands and gates, thus enabling Copenhagen to increase its capacity with a smaller infrastructure investment.
Christian Poulsen, CIO and VP for Assets & Technology at Copenhagen Airports, describes the role IT plays in supporting their strategic objectives: “We have an ambitious vision to become a world-class hub for Northern Europe. Our objective is to grow from 25 to 40 million passengers per year, and as a part of this focus we are optimising our infrastructure to better help our airline partners to serve the increasing number of international routes and operations. We have chosen Amadeus as a strategic partner. Amadeus has the proven experience and leading cloud capabilities to deliver an operational traffic IT solution which will enable us to meet our goals whilst in parallel ensuring we keep our focus on continued innovation.”
John Jarrell, Head of Airport IT at Amadeus, said: “We look forward to helping Copenhagen harness the power of the cloud through this landmark agreement. Airports around the world are considering how new approaches to technology can help increase capacity, efficiency, the passenger experience and open new revenue streams, whilst also delivering more competitive services to their airline customers. With the on-going air traffic capacity constraints that exist in Europe we are seeing a shift in the industry as airport operators such as Copenhagen Airports, a company consistently recognised for its efficiency and emphasis on innovation, take advantage of the benefits of the cloud.”
Amadeus’ Airport IT division was created in 2011 and has seen rapid organic growth as well as the acquisition of UFIS Airport Solutions in 2014 and more recently the acquisition of Air-Transport IT Services in 2015.
