The Hindu Business Line : Spanish, Italian airlines extend TopAir use deal

SPANISH airline Iberworld and Italian Blue Panorama have extended contracts for use of TopAir, an airline flight operations system from IBS Software Services, a leading player in the travel, transportation and logistics (TTL) industry.

A spokesman for IBS Soft, based in Technopark here, said that the respective contracts were signed with Avient Solutions, the Global Centre of Excellence for Flight Operations for IBS Soft operating out of London.

Mr Jose Luis Cardona, IT and Quality Director at Iberworld, said that Avient has enabled the company to successfully integrate existing IT systems with TopAir. Iberworld has been using TopAir for the last four years, and has now opted to continue with the system for three more.

Avient has built complex crew rules into TopAir, which has resulted in an error-free environment and reduction in both manual effort and redundancy.

In 2005, Avient built an Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) interface that provides flight operations with real-time flight information.

Blue Panorama currently uses TopAir to manage its flight scheduling, flight operations and crew management processes and has extended its contract for a further five years. Since implementing TopAir in 2000, the Italian airliner has been able to raise the fleet size from five to 11 aircraft. Communication costs have also been reduced and unnecessary expenditure has been curtailed.

TopAir automates airline operations that include flight scheduling, fleet planning, crew management, flight operations, fuel management, catering management, aircraft checks planning and finance control activities. An integrated solution that avoids data redundancy and provides real-time information across various departments in the airline, TopAir makes operations easier for scheduled, charter, low-cost and cargo airlines.

With 10 airline companies using TopAir currently, the product has garnered a significant market share in the European airline market, the spokesman said.

IBS has further developed TopAir after acquiring it from EDS (Electronic Data Systems) and has customised it for different global market regions. The product is available in different database versions to suit clients' needs, with airlines having the choice to migrate from one version to the other.

Among other TopAir customers are Farnair (an alliance of European Cargo airlines), Darwin Airline (Switzerland), Windjet (Italy), Hello AG (Switzerland), ItAli (Rome), Alpi Eagles (Italy), Swiss (Switzerland) and First Choice Airlines (UK).

Having established itself in Europe, IBS is now aggressively moving to market TopAir in West Asia , the US and Asia-Pacific markets.

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