Virgin Blue Selects Navitaire’s New Skies Platform to Support Long-Term Growth

MINNEAPOLIS and BRISBANE, Australia – Virgin Blue, a “new world carrier” based in Australia, has chosen Navitaire’s distribution, reservation, travel commerce and departure control solutions to support its long-term business plans. Terms of the contract were not disclosed.

Navitaire, a wholly owned subsidiary of Accenture (NYSE: ACN), provides technology and business solutions to the airline industry on an outsourced basis.

Under the agreement, which enhances and broadens services provided by Navitaire under a previous multi-year contract, Virgin Blue will convert to Navitaire’s latest New Skies platform later this year. Enhanced services will provide Virgin Blue with new capabilities, including fully integrated ancillary travel sales, advanced guest recognition and expanded code-share and inter-airline partnering.

New Skies is a comprehensive airline passenger sales and management solution providing capabilities for integrated Internet booking, call center reservations, travel agency global distribution connectivity, inter-airline and alliance code-share itineraries, real-time reporting, ancillary revenue generation and departure control.

Virgin Blue plans to use the New Skies platform to help:

· Boost profitability and revenue with flexible ancillary service offerings for car-hire, travel insurance and other functions, all integrated directly into the booking flows;

· Expand revenue-generating inter-airline and code-share services by aligning with an extensive network of airlines partners;

· Create new product and market offerings to reach high-yield and leisure travelers by incorporating customer-centric data throughout the entire guest lifecycle;

· Provide comprehensive day-of-departure passenger services through advanced guest recognition capabilities; and

· Optimize the combination of seat revenue and guest satisfaction by offering New Skies’ proprietary ‘Intelligent Seating’ capabilities.

“New Skies supports our long-term growth and our commitment to provide the best value for money by supplying the platform to let us create differentiated, high-value services for our guests across every customer touch-point,” said Brett Godfrey, Virgin Blue CEO. “New Skies has the features, the built-in ancillary revenue capabilities, the broad airline alliance and GDS capabilities and the flexible architecture to give our evolving carrier a competitive advantage now and in the future.”

John Dabkowski, Navitaire managing director, said, “Since its inception, Virgin Blue has emerged as an award-winning and highly regarded leader in the airline industry. The airline recognizes that Navitaire is an innovative and responsive technology partner that can support its long-term growth via open and flexible systems to integrate easily with its travel partners and to create new ways to offer greater convenience and value to its guests.”

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About Virgin Blue Group
Multi-award-winning airline Virgin Blue and international carriers Pacific Blue and Polynesian Blue currently operate a fleet of 78 modern Boeing 737 and Embraer E-Jet aircraft flying to 26 Australian and nine international nations including New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, Bali and the Solomon Islands. Virgin Blue was the first airline in the world to launch a Government-certified carbon offset program, where Guests can offset the carbon emissions from their flights. Virgin Blue Group has also launched Australia’s newest international airline, V Australia, which operates flights between Australia and the United States of America.

About Navitaire
Navitaire (www.navitaire.com) delivers industry-leading technology services that enable growth, profitability and innovation to more than 75 airlines worldwide, including a many of the world’s most successful airlines. Navitaire offers a full suite of proven solutions focused on revenue generation and streamlining costs in the areas of reservations, ancillary sales, distribution, planning, revenue accounting, business intelligence and operations management and recovery. A wholly owned subsidiary of Accenture, Navitaire has offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.