e-Travel Reinforces Global Leadership With 10 New Airlines Going Live On Planitgo

Existing Planitgo customers grow transactions by 62 percent in first quarter 2003.

Madrid, 19 June 2003 – e-Travel, the global leader in online travel solutions and the e-commerce unit of Amadeus GTD, today announced that 10 airlines have recently launched their online presence based on e-Travel® Planitgo booking engine solutions and services. This brings the total number of airlines adopting Planitgo as their online reservation system to 52, representing 123 international Web sites.

Illustrating e-Travel global coverage, the new customers come from five continents:

– North America: Canadian North, Copa Airlines (Panama)
– South America: Southern Winds (Argentina)
– Europe: Air Dolomiti (Italy), Air Wales, CityJet (Ireland), SN Brussels Airlines (Belgium), and TAROM (Rumania)
– Africa: Ethiopian Airlines
– Asia: Philippine Airlines

Existing Planitgo customers achieved an overall 62 per cent growth in their bookings in the first quarter of 2003, compared to the same period of the previous year.

“The growth levels achieved by existing customers and the increasing number of new clients show that the Planitgo ASP (Application Service Provider) model enables online travel players to benefit from economies-of-scale and obtain a rapid return on their investment, ” said Jérôme Destors, Director for Suppliers and Agencies at e-Travel. “To sustain growth and quality, we continue to focus on serving our global customer base with innovative solutions translated into 20 languages, supported locally, and backed by 24/7 customer service hotlines”.

e-Travel Planitgo is a fully customizable Web-based travel booking engine, serving leading leisure, airline and other travel supplier sites around the globe. Planitgo delivers a range of content including air, car, hotel, fares, fly-and-drive, insurance, tours and other travel-related information, to both business and leisure travellers. Planitgo can calculate fares in all major currencies, ensuring the easiest booking experience for customers worldwide.

About the new e-Travel Planitgo customers

–Air Dolomiti, www.airdolomiti.it, a Lufthansa partner, is a regional Italian airline with flights across Italy and Europe.
–Air Wales, www.airwales.co.uk, offers a fast, economical and convenient service for both business and leisure travel from London, Belfast, Dublin, Cardiff, Cork, Swansea, Jersey, and Plymouth.
–Canadian North, www.canadiannorth.com provides jet service to the communities in Canada’s Northwest Territories and Nunavut through the three key gateway cites of Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa.
–CityJet, www.cityjet.com, the Irish partner of Air France, carries one million passengers per year and operates five franchise routes on behalf of Air France between Paris CDG and Dublin, London City, Edinburgh, Gothenburg and Florence as well as a code share service between Dublin and Málaga on which the online selling function currently is concentrated.
–Copa Airlines, www.copaair.com, based in Panama, serves 30 destinations in 20 countries in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean. Copa is an affiliate and code share partner of Continental Airlines.
–Ethiopian Airlines, www.flyethiopian.com, carries one million passengers a year and operates an international network that currently covers 44 international and 26 domestic destinations from its hub at Addis Ababa.
–Philippine Airlines, www.philippineairlines.com, operates a route network that spans 29 foreign cities and 19 domestic points. Philippine continues to be the largest carrier of visitors from North America to the Philippines, operating 24 flights weekly.
–SN Brussels Airlines, www.flySN.com, is experiencing dramatic online growth. The new Belgian full-service airline based in Brussels is offering its customers a gateway to Europe and Africa. The company, which employs more than 1, 800 people, guarantees more than 285 punctual flights a day to 48 European, six American and 13 African cities. SN Brussels Airlines’ modern fleet consists of 35 aircraft.
–Southern Winds, www.sw.com.ar, is the first privately owned airline in Argentina to apply for and obtain permits for international traffic, serving destinations such as Paris, Rome, Milan, Miami, and London.
–TAROM, www.tarom.ro, is the Romanian national carrier, based in Bucharest and serving more than 40 destinations in Europe, Middle East, North America, Africa and Asia.

About e-Travel

e-Travel, the e-commerce business unit of Amadeus Global Travel Distribution, SA, is the leading global provider of online travel technology. It provides e-commerce solutions for airlines, corporations, travel agencies, and other online travel businesses, and is dedicated to its customers’ net success. e-Travel serves customers in more than 40 countries, including corporations like Airbus, DaimlerChrysler, Gateway, Ingersoll-Rand Company, Oracle Corporation, as well as travel suppliers like Air France, Iberia, and Qantas, and online agencies like Opodo. Parent company Amadeus Global Travel Distribution SA is the leading global distribution system (GDS) and technology provider serving the marketing, sales, and distribution needs of the world’s travel and tourism industries. For more information about e-Travel, please visit www.e-travel.com

e-Travel is a registered trademark of e-Travel Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.

Contact:

e-Travel, Corporate and Marketing Communication, Amadeus Global Travel Distribution, +34 91 582 0160, [email protected]