Southwest Airlines to replace its reservations system (finally) - Dallas Morning News (blog)

Southwest Airlines, which picked Amadeus several years ago to build it a new system to handle international reservations and itineraries, let the other technological shoe drop on Monday.

Southwest said it has contracted with Amadeus IT Group to replace Southwest’s domestic reservation system as well. Southwest is buying Amadeus’ Altéa reservation product.

Southwest officials have said for some time that they anticipated that they would go with Amadeus for the domestic part of their reservations system, assuming the international portion operated well.

“We were pleased with the international launch, and we could not be more impressed with the experience of Amadeus and the capabilities of their product,” Southwest chairman and CEO Gary Kelly said in Southwest’s announcement.

“We are the largest domestic carrier in the United States, and we believe having one reservation system will provide a better operation for our employees and our customers as we embark on our very bright future domestically and abroad,” Kelly said.

Southwest’s domestic reservations technology has been limiting for the Dallas company. It couldn’t handle international reservations. It couldn’t handle “codesharing,” or selling reservations linking its flight network to that of another carrier. The codesharing it started with merger partner AirTran Airways took many months of computer work to allow.

The existing Southwest reservations system, known as SAAS, is a Sabre product that is based on the old Braniff Airways reservations system, much modified. (It’s nothing like a modern Sabre product.) It worked well enough through the years since Southwest didn’t code-share with other carriers, didn’t fly internationally and didn’t need too much complexity.

In May 2011, it merged with AirTran, which did fly internationally and had a more sophisticated reservations system, Navitaire. The acquisition set in motion Southwest’s plans to fly on international routes, to codeshare and to use the technology to better run a lot of the airline’s planning and operations.

In April 2012, Southwest and Amadeus announced a contract for Southwest to use Altéa technology for the international part of its system. It didn’t include the domestic portion of Southwest’s route network, but Kelly and others suggested Altéa would be extended to the domestic reservations if the international reservations went well.

Southwest began selling international tickets in January, for service that begins in July.

“Over the next few years, Southwest and Amadeus will partner to move to a single reservation system,” Southwest and Amadeus said in the joint press release.

Until then, Southwest said it will continue operating two systems – the Altéa system for international flights and the legacy Southwest system for domestic flights – after AirTran is absorbed into Southwest and the brand is retired in December 2014.

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