Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, plans to implement the new Amadeus Fare Families tool in the indirect channel, to support its innovative merchandising strategy – making it the first Middle Eastern carrier to employ the new solution.

Developed by leading technology partner to the global travel industry, Amadeus, the new technology solution will help the airline achieve its objective of accelerating international growth through differentiation and upsell opportunities, via its extensive sales network, Etihad said in a statement.

Through Amadeus Fare Families, Etihad Airways will brand and differentiate its products and services by showing the full value of each packaged fare on all its retailing interfaces for all customer segments and worldwide points of sale.

With clear descriptions on service characteristics and terms and conditions, both travellers and travel agents benefit from greater transparency in the shopping process. In doing so, travel agents will be better equipped to advise their customers and proactively upsell from one fare family to the other, based on the traveller's needs and preferences.

Peter Baumgartner, chief commercial officer, Etihad Airways, said: "We are delighted to extend our 'Fare Choices' to the Amadeus travel community, thereby ensuring that our customers can always enjoy our full range of innovative services, irrespective of which channel they choose to shop on.”

"Through Amadeus, our packaged fares will now also be available in the indirect channel‎ worldwide and displayed at all points of sale in a way that is consistent with our brand," he said.

Etihad files its fare families using ATPCo Branded Fares and Amadeus is the first technology provider to support this new industry standard. Apart from filing centrally, airlines can also file their fare families directly in the Amadeus system if they so prefer.

To date, 17 airlines have implemented Amadeus Fare Families to distribute their branded fares through Amadeus. – TradeArabia News Service