Amadeus said it has created the first interline Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD) link, which facilitates the payment and delivery of ancillary services across airline partnerships and alliances.
With up to 20% of air bookings made through the Amadeus GDS involving interline partnerships, Amadeus said the new technology provides "a huge opportunity for airlines to increase revenues through the sale of ancillary services via their partner carriers."
Interline EMD processing between Finnair and EgyptAir means the carriers’ customers can now buy ancillary services across interline flights, Amadeus said.
Previously, the only way the operating airline would know a customer had purchased an ancillary service, such as extra baggage allowance, was through a paper document provided by the traveler at the airport.
According to Amadeus research, the company said ancillary services were worth over $35 billion to airlines in 2011, contributing upwards of 20% of total revenue 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," Julia Sattel, Amadeus vice president of Airline IT, said in a statement.
Amadeus also said that EMDs remove the need for paper documents to account for the sale of ancillary services, which IATA believes would save the industry $0.9 billion annually.
“Ancillary services are clearly always critical to airline profitability," stated Petteri Skaffari, head of customer experience and sales applications for Finnair. "To maintain our focus on service excellence, we must ensure that when we sell ancillary services they are delivered in the way the customer expects.
"That’s especially true when our interline partner airlines deliver services sold under the Finnair brand. That’s where EMDs will make a big difference for our customer experience."
To date, 22 carriers have implemented Amadeus’ EMD Server, resulting in more than 4 million EMDs processed during 2011, the company said.
Follow Johanna Jainchill on Twitter @jjainchilltw.