Amadeus’s Altea tech offers auctions for upgrades and ‘neighbour-free’ seats

Airline customers can bid for upgrades and ‘neighbour-free’ seats as a result of a new partnership between Amadeus and Plusgrade.

Airline customers can bid for upgrades and ‘neighbour-free’ seats as a result of a new partnership between Amadeus and Plusgrade.

Plusgrade provides technology to airlines so passengers can bid to move to a different class or have an empty seat next to them.

After buying a ticket and securing a seat, passengers of airlines using the Altéa product place bids for these services online using a slider – they find out if their offer is accepted between 24 and 72 hours before departure.

Julia Sattel, senior vice president, airline IT, Amadeus IT Group, said: “Enhancing merchandising capabilities for our airline customers is a priority for us at Amadeus.

“We have been focusing on developing partnerships in order to deliver innovative solutions fast.

“Through this partnership, Altéa customers will be able to implement this solution much quicker than before.

“Airlines will be able to boost that all-important bottom line, whilst travellers will gain greatly from the increased choice and flexibility when deciding how they want their flight experience to be.”

Ken Harris, Plusgrade’s chief executive officer, said: “Plusgrade’s mission is to help airlines generate as much revenue as possible from every flight.

“Our partnership with Amadeus further strengthens Plusgrade’s ability to innovate, lead and build upon the meaningful revenue streams and enhanced customer experiences for which our signature up-sell solutions are known.

“Together with Amadeus, we will deliver powerful end-to-end ancillary revenue solutions and experiences for our common customer base in a rapid timeframe.”

Amadeus has been investing in personalisation, shopping and “dynamic offer management” to deliver advanced merchandising capabilities for its airline customers.

The business says from 2014 to 2015 its top 50 airline customers saw overall PNR volume increase by 15.2%; yield increase by an average of 8.8% and revenue increase by 25%.

The number of airline ancillaries booked through Amadeus’ ancillary solution has increased by 50% year-on-year, across all airlines.