Virgin Atlantic selects EDS for next-generation airline reservation system

New Delhi : EDS, an HP company and Virgin Atlantic Airways have signed an IT services agreement. New to this five-year agreement, EDS will provide the next generation online reservations solution, EDS Reservation Services, a part of
EDS' transportation applications. New features included in the solution are Electronic Miscellaneous Documents (EMD), which allow Virgin Atlantic employees to electronically capture and account for ancillary sales, and ticket re-issue and refund (TRR) software. "We are impressed with
EDS' vision for their new reservations platform and how this will enable Virgin Atlantic to exploit a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to provide improved customer services, greater agility and lower costs," said Mike Cope, IT--Director, Virgin Atlantic.

Also new to the agreement, EDS will use its airline service-oriented architecture (AirlineSOA) that connects software and systems to better integrate Virgin
Atlantic's operations. Each of these new functionalities helps Virgin Atlantic lower core reservations services costs and add new revenue opportunities.

EDS will continue to provide passenger-processing services that include applications development and hosting of EDS reservation services, which handles approximately six million revenue passengers boarded annually for Virgin Atlantic.

EDS Agility Alliance partner Microsoft will provide select tools, software and resources to EDS in support of Virgin Atlantic. Together, EDS and its Agility Alliance partners collaborate to design and develop technology-based services to deliver tangible client results.

EDS Agility Alliance partners include Cisco, EMC, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun Microsystems and Xerox.