insight newsletter - June 2010

Would you like to become our "fan" or "follower"? Do you already use social networks such as Facebook or Twitter? Social media is the buzzword of the day. The user numbers are rising rapidly, with over 400 million people registered worldwide at Facebook alone. The principle of these new communication media is as simple as it is ground-breaking: The sole consumption of provided content was yesterday; today every platform user has the possibility to comment on contributions or post their own information. Social networks thus facilitate interaction and collaboration – monolog is increasingly becoming dialog.

And Lufthansa Systems is now also participating actively: We are continuously expanding our online communication and developing new channels. You can now find our profile on Facebook. Here you can receive interesting news about the company and read posts about our innovative solutions which we are posting in Facebook and publicizing via Twitter. Drop by or simply become a fan or a follower and have the postings forwarded to you automatically.

Did you know that you can also subscribe to our latest news in the form of RSS feeds? This ensures that you are up to date on current developments at all times. We also save you from storing the relevant web pages of our Internet presence by incorporating the buttons of the most important social bookmark services. We look forward to our dialog with you!

With Aeroflot the first Russian airline has decided to implement the Sirax AirFinance Platform from Lufthansa Systems. We will implement several modules of the revenue accounting solution at the airline: Sirax Revenue Accounting, SiraxCredit, and SiraxCargo. The companies signed a five-year contract to this effect. With the innovative IT solution, Aeroflot will optimize both, passenger and cargo revenue accounting processes, leading to increased profitability.

The Sirax AirFinance Platform from Lufthansa Systems is the first integrated platform to optimize all of your financial processes. It has enabled our customers to achieve considerable savings in their finance department. Leading carriers deploying this integrated finance solution were able to reduce their operating costs in this area by up to 45 percent and total costs by more than 35 percent. We work closely with IATA to ensure that our platform not only meets current standards but is also well prepared for future developments such as SIS (Simplified Interline Settlement) and EMD (Electronic Multipurpose Document).

By checking ticket sales against actual flight data, the Sirax Revenue Accounting solution speeds up the accounting process. The highly automated system also helps to control processes that involve a variety of complex rates, codeshare agreements, alliances, as well as taxes and fees. It delivers precise, timely information for the management and the accounting division of an airline. With SiraxCargo you can also optimize your cargo revenue accounting processes. The module supplies reliable data for numerous business processes – including reservations, pricing, billing and accounting. In addition, SiraxCredit enables you to charge all types of credit card sales to the respective card issuer. The solution features fast, precise and fully automated accounting.

The Chinese airline Jade Cargo International has signed a contract to equip its cockpit crews with Lufthansa Systems’ Lido/RouteManual. By implementing the user-friendly navigation charts until summer 2010 the Shenzhen-based airline will join the growing group of airlines around the world profiting from the advantages of our aeronautical solutions. The electronic version of the charts, Lido/eRouteManual, will be introduced at a later point in time.

In 2006 Jade Cargo International already opted for Lido/FMS, our navigation database service for Flight Management Systems (FMS). Lido/RouteManual charts are generated directly from the same database which contains worldwide geographical and aeronautical data. The charts include graphical representations of take-off and landing procedures as well as true-to-scale geographic information such as colour-coded terrain features and rivers.

As for many other carriers the introduction of Lido/RouteManual is an important step towards the paperless cockpit. The identical setup and structure of the charts makes it easier for you to subsequently migrate to the electronic Lido/eRouteManual solution. It will allow for further optimization of cockpit processes and significantly lower costs associated with providing pilots with the most recent information for every flight.

Etihad will manage its codeshare flights with SchedConnect from Lufthansa Systems. Both companies recently signed a three-year contract to this effect. In 2009, Etihad expanded its network by over 150 % through new codeshare agreements. The airline currently cooperates with 19 codeshare partners. With SchedConnect Etihad can optimize its codeshare management which leads to cost savings and higher revenues.

SchedConnect is the most advanced system of its kind available today and offers you a high degree of automation. Each day, it calculates the optimum codeshare assignments based on the current flight schedules. The system processes up to 15 million schedule changes of all SchedConnect customers every month. If a minimum connecting time is violated due to a schedule change or if a partner flight is cancelled, SchedConnect assigns automatically the marketing flight number to another suitable connecting flight. Changes are sent through the reservation systems to travel agents and customers as well as to the operations and passenger-related systems of the airlines involved.

TNT Airways will fly with the navigation charts from Lufthansa Systems. The airline decided to initially use the Lido/RouteManual paper charts and then migrate to the electronic version Lido/eRouteManual. Both companies recently signed a three-year contract to this effect.

The navigation charts from Lufthansa Systems are generated directly from the Lido navigation database and provide cockpit crews with the most up-to-date geographical and aeronautical information. Lido/RouteManual includes graphical representations of take-off and landing procedures as well as true-to-scale geographic information such as terrain features and rivers. Pilots value the easy legibility and the clear structure of the individual charts. This reduces their workload in the cockpit, especially during key flight situations such as take-off and landing.

The layout, colors and symbols are identical in the paper-based Lido/RouteManual and the electronic Lido/eRouteManual, which will make it easier for pilots to switch to the electronic navigation charts. One benefit of Lido/eRouteManual is that its charts can be updated more quickly and easily than paper charts, since updated charts no longer need to be printed out and distributed to each cockpit. In addition, cockpit crews can determine the level of detail presented by the charts. Depending on the chosen zoom step, information can be shown either in detail or reduced to key aspects.

Airlines can access important commercial data much more easily with the newly launched web portal for the Integrated Commercial Platform (ICP). By providing your planning staff with all of the commercial planning information they need from various sources, the portal speeds up decision-making and enhances your competitiveness.

The Integrated Commercial Platform covers all of your network and revenue management processes. It ensures a comprehensive overview of the information relevant to commercial planning and gives you a solid foundation of data for managing your business. The ICP thus enables carriers to react faster and more flexibly in an environment that is both complex and dynamic.

The portal’s modern, intuitive user interface gives you quick access to the fares, flight frequencies, average yields and market shares of the complete network as well as information on offers from competitors. Instead of making decisions based solely on their own data, employees from scheduling and revenue management can now access all critical information from any department. This makes it easier to evaluate how individual decisions will affect each department and enables an integrated approach to airline management.

Like all of our platform solutions, the Integrated Commercial Platform is completely modular and can therefore be adapted precisely to your specific needs.

Lufthansa Systems has launched a new version of its proven operations control solution, NetLine/Ops. The enhanced version makes it even easier for you to optimize flight operations control and respond quickly to irregularities. The latest release of our proven operations control solution offers new and improved functions, a modern IT architecture and a comfortable user interface. It enables you to make your flight operations even more efficient and significantly lowers the cost of disruptions arising from ferry flights and passenger overnight stays, for example.

NetLine/Ops is suitable for airlines of any size with any business model. Its flexibility is a particular advantage, since the solution can cover both dynamic passenger growth and changes to an airline’s business processes.

Several powerful features have been added to NetLine/Ops, including programs known as business process wizards which make it easier to efficiently deal with operational disruptions such as delays, cancellations or diversions. The reporting function has been improved as well, so planners can export query results to a standard table and use them for analyses and strategic planning. The expanded scenario management tool is especially interesting in that it optimizes decision-making by informing planners more quickly and comprehensively of the courses of action available to them. The Swedish carrier Malmö Aviation is the first customer to use the new NetLine/Ops solution in day-to-day operations.