Amadeus Takes Off Into the Cloud
- By CDOTrends editors
- December 06, 2021
The pandemic clobbered the travel industry. It stopped flights and made travel unpredictable. And while domestic flights are returning to normal, international flights still pale compared to pre-pandemic times.
One major company that sees a need for cloud-driven agility is Amadeus. The Spanish travel giant partnered with Microsoft earlier this year to do what it proudly claims as a “once-in-a-generation” transformation.
Airlines, airports, hotels, rail providers, and many thousands of travel sellers rely on Amadeus systems to manage bookings. However, the system still runs on pre-cloud tech.
With the Microsoft strategic partnership, the company is looking to modernize, jointly innovate and create new products for cutting-edge travel.
Amadeus’s insights into its transformation plan and the various projects are detailed in a newly published report, ‘Journey to Cloud Planet.’
The report looks at the benefits of cloud capabilities for the travel industry and the technology transformation, which will see more than 400 high-performance applications transitioning to Microsoft Azure.
It also details a first for the travel industry with the development of the Amadeus Data Mesh, the next evolution of a data lake, which joins travel data in an open, shareable, and transparent manner to help fuel data science and train advanced machine learning algorithms.
“This report clearly lays out our vision to transform travel technology with Microsoft, and I am confident it will inspire and create optimism in the industry as we continue down the path of recovery,” said Christophe Bousquet, Amadeus’s chief technology officer.
“The move to Microsoft Azure is the greatest technology transformation in Amadeus’ 30-year history, and it marks the dawn of a new era. Travel data will be openly accessible within a defined governance framework. The pace of innovation will drastically increase. Our customers can build the cross-industry traveler experiences we know are essential to increasing the overall value of travel,” he added.
The report also offered a glimpse into the development of innovation projects by Amadeus and Microsoft. These include the Traveler Centric Platform and other vital areas such as travel search and business travel.
“Being able to create a traveler experience that is much more hassle-free is exciting, particularly when it comes to helping create a smoother journey for travelers. I think Amadeus and Microsoft can create solutions that will add more value services, reduce cost, and support the needs of travelers. Bringing data together and driving an AI solution on top of it will help not only Amadeus but also its partners to leverage better data-driven outcomes,” said Microsoft’s Sanders.
Image credit: iStockphoto/Jag_cz