Travelport and Alitalia agree merchandising distribution

Italian carrier to distribute seats, bags, lounge access, insurance…

Langley, 2012-11-06 — /travelprnews.com/ — Travelport, the business services provider to the global travel industry, and Alitalia, Compagnia Aerea Italiana, today announce the implementation of a new agreement for the distribution of ancillary services to Travelport-connected agencies in Italy and worldwide. Fulfilled seamlessly via an electronic miscellaneous document (EMD), the new service will begin rollout in quarter four 2012, starting with travel agents in Italy.

 “Launching this service with Alitalia is an important step in increasing their reach and delivering greater choice to agents and travellers. Retail techniques that were once considered the reserve of web and direct sales are now available through a new generation of agency points of sale,” says Robin Ranken, Head of Airline Relationships for Europe at Travelport. “We are committed to working with our airline partners to grow their ancillary revenues through the agency channel.”

Aldo Ponticelli, VP Distribution at Alitalia, said: “By distributing Alitalia ancillaries services   through Travelport, we have the opportunity to differentiate our product from other airlines and to communicate our value to our clients through the travel agency channel, contributing to our growth plan”.

Providing fulfillment via EMD completes the end-to-end process for travel agency distribution of airline ancillary services and forms part of Travelport’s wider merchandising offering. This offering enables a number of major airlines to sell their products in a more efficient and integrated way through travel agents.  Over the past 16 months, Travelport has seamlessly integrated ancillary services with a number of airlines into agency points of sale.

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Media Contacts

ALITALIA
Antonella Zivillica
VP Media Relations
Tel. 06-65638950
Email. ufficio.stampa@alitalia
TRAVELPORT
Matt Hennessey
Tel: +44 (0) 1753 288329
E-mail:  matthew.hennessey@travelport.com

About Travelport (www.travelport.com)
Travelport is a broad-based business services company and a leading provider of critical transaction processing solutions to companies operating in the global travel industry.

With a presence in over 170 countries, approximately 3,500 employees and 2011 net revenue of $2.0 billion, Travelport is comprised of the global distribution systems (GDS) business, which includes the Galileo and Worldspan brands and its Airline IT Solutions business.
Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Travelport is a privately owned company.

Follow Travelport on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Travelport

About Alitalia
Alitalia – Compagnia Aerea Italiana is Italy’s leading airline with 25 million passengers carried (in 2011), with an operating fleet of 147 aircraft (October 2012) and a network of 78 destinations in Italy and worldwide (winter season 2012-2013). The Alitalia network is based at 7 airports: Rome, Milan Linate, Milan Malpensa, Turin, Venice, Naples and Catania. Alitalia is a member of the SkyTeam alliance and of the airline industry’s leading trans-Atlantic Joint Venture with Air France-KLM Group and Delta Air Lines. In 2011 Alitalia received, for the second year in a row, the award for the category ‘Best Airline Cuisine’ as best airline in the world for the quality of it’s on board meals. The prize has been awarded by the American magazine Global Traveler that had promoted a research among more than 36,000 frequent flyers on the excellences of the travel and tourism industry. More information on www.alitalia.com.