Avianca Holdings continues to rely on Codeshare Management solution from Lufthansa Systems

Nov 24, 2016

SchedConnect contract extended for another five years

Lufthansa Systems today announced that Avianca Holdings will continue to manage its codeshare connections with SchedConnect. This solution from Lufthansa Systems flexibly adapts the management of codeshare flights to schedule changes and offers a high degree of automation. This enables Avianca to optimize its codeshare management while reducing costs and enhancing its competitiveness. The company recently signed a five-year contract extension for the solution.

“Even though we are pleased with the Lufthansa Systems numerous products we are using already, we evaluated the codeshare management solutions of several IT providers. Especially the concept of having a system with central flight repository and real time schedule synchronization in Avianca’s airline group leads to essential benefits for us. The comprehensive codeshare management features, the high automation and synchronization of schedules within the Star Alliance airlines and beyond is a great unique selling proposition (USP) of Lufthansa Systems’ SchedConnect solution,” said Eduardo Asmar, Senior Vice President Strategy and Network at Avianca Holdings. “We expect this to deliver significant cost savings as well as additional revenues.”

SchedConnect offers a high level of automation by receiving and sending schedule data of over 150 airlines worldwide and calculating the optimal codeshare connections for the current customer schedules on a daily basis. Each and every month, five million codeshare connections on average are calculated using SchedConnect. If a minimum connecting time cannot be ensured due to a schedule change or if a partner flight is canceled, SchedConnect assigns the marketing flight number to another suitable connecting flight operated by the partner. 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.

Avianca Holdings and Lufthansa Systems have been commercial partners since 2004. “Avianca Holdings already uses several products from our NetLine suite as well as ProfitLine/Price and Lido/Flight. Additional solutions like NetLine/Ops and NetLine/Crew are currently being implemented,” said Greg Cork, Senior Vice President Regional Management Americas at Lufthansa Systems. “By renewing this contract, we are further expanding our long-standing partnership with a strategically important customer.”

Based in Panama, Avianca Holdings is the parent group of Avianca Colombia and the TACA Group, which in turn includes regional carriers Lacsa – Costa Rica, TACA International – El Salvador, Aviateca – Guatemala, TACA de Honduras and TACA Peru. Other group airlines include Aerogal – Ecuador and Avianca Cargo. The Avianca Holdings airlines specialize in air cargo and passenger transport and operate a combined fleet of 155 aircraft. Overall, the subsidiary airlines serve 100 direct destinations in 26 countries in North, Central and South America. Avianca Holdings is a Star Alliance member, which enables it to offer its passengers connections to more than 1,300 airports in 192 countries worldwide.

Caption (Copyright: Manfred Nerlich): Lufthansa Systems’ SchedConnect facilitates the handling of complex codeshare connections for the airlines of Avianca Holdings.