Amadeus reports the creation of the world’s first interline Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD) link that airlines can now use to facilitate payment for and delivery of ancillary services across their partnerships and alliances. Amadeus’ launch partner airlines are Finnair and EgyptAir.
Amadeus estimates that up to 20 percent of air bookings made through its system are the result of interline partnerships – a significant opportunity for airlines to increase revenues through the sale of ancillary services via partner carriers.
EMDs also remove the need for paper documents to account for the sale of ancillary services, Amadeus notes, citing IATA data that EMDs will save the industry $0.9 billion annually.
Amadeus reports that to date, 56 airlines have contracted Amadeus’ EMD Server to enable the provision of EMDs in order to facilitate the sale of ancillary services, and 22 carriers have implemented Amadeus’s EMD Server, resulting in 4,098,842 EMDs processed during 2011.
“Our research estimates ancillary services were worth over $35 billion to airlines in 2011, with ancillary services contributing upwards of 20 percent of total revenues for some carriers. A well implemented ancillary services strategy is now the difference between reaching profitability and incurring a loss for a large number of airlines. We are naturally absolutely delighted to be able to welcome Finnair and EgyptAir to be our launch partner airlines for what is the world’s first interline EMD link,” Julia Sattel, Vice President Airline IT, Amadeus, said. 2013 is the target date for full application of EMD across the industry.
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