TokyoTomo Travel Guide

David Brett, President Amadeus Asian Pacific (Amadeus) told the Travel Vision News on February 17 that Amadeus endeavors to become a global leader in technology and distribution solutions, always providing the future-oriented technology to the travel industry. When asked about its business performance in the Japan market, he said, “We, Amadeus, are constantly expanding our market share.” “We are not necessarily striving for the market share, but we would definitely like to address the role Amadeus can play in the industry” Joining forces with travel agencies and airlines to develop products, Amadeus would “build a travel industry of the future,” said Brett.

Commenting further on the present market environment, Brett mentioned that the entire Asian-Pacific region, mainly with the emerging markets including India and China, would regain the excellent growth level of 2007. Japan, however, is an advanced country and it may be difficult to return to its level of 2007, yet it would be accurate to say that Japan will continue to grow. Meanwhile, under these circumstances, both travel agencies and airlines are eager to take advantage of IT technology in a drive to improve the efficiency and reduce the costs as well. Amadeus would certainly like to regard this movement as a business opportunity, Brett said.

Read more…

India’s leading domestic carrier and only five-star airline, Kingfisher Airlines, is lining up to join oneworld® – the quality airline alliance in which Japan Airlines (JAL) belong, after signing a memorandum of understanding as its first step towards full membership, subject to Indian regulatory approval. Kingfisher Airlines today applied to India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation for authority to proceed with its membership of oneworld.

British Airways will support Kingfisher Airlines through its alliance implementation program, as its oneworld sponsor and Kingfisher Airlines could be expected to start flying as part of oneworld during 2011.

Kingfisher Airlines’ addition to oneworld will link India’s most extensive domestic network with oneworld’s unrivalled global network, as the only alliance with airlines based on every continent. It will add 58 cities to the oneworld map – all of them in India and this will expand oneworld’s network to 800 destinations in almost 150 countries, served by a combined fleet of 2,350 aircraft operating some 9,000 flights a day, carrying some 340 million passengers a year.

Read more…

American Airlines, along with its Oneworld alliance partners, British Airways (BA), Cathay Pacific Airways (CX) and Qantas Airways (QF), compiled a proposal to offer Japan Airlines under a restructuring plan over two billion US dollars (approx. 180 billion yen) in commercial benefits over the next three years. Meanwhile, American Airlines raised its offer of investment in JAL up to 1.4 billion US dollars (approx.128 billion yen) from its initial proposal of 1.1 billion US dollars (approx. 100 billion yen), should the investment be requested by JAL or the Japanese government. Tom Horton, EVP, Finance and CFO, AMR Corp. and American Airlines, told a press meeting on January 12 that it is high time for JAL to focus its strategy on well-balanced sources of revenue, stressing that Oneworld alliance members, by joining forces, will bring more benefits to JAL.

Two billion US dollars worth of commercial benefits that the business partnership with Oneworld would bring JAL include 1.5 billion US dollars if JAL stays within Oneworld, 300 million US dollars from anti-trust immunity (ATI) with American Airlines and another 200 million US dollars from joint venture with British Airways. Initially, American Airlines intended to invest in JAL more than 1.1 billion US dollars, but sweetened its proposal, enabling JAL to benefit from twice as much commercial benefits over three years compared to the initial cash investment offer, explained Horton, stressing the merits of the new proposal. Also, Qantas Airways, having low cost carrier (LCC) JetStar Airways, under its umbrella, proposed to provide JAL the accumulated know-how of its two-brand strategy.

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.