Case study

British Airways

Leading the way with innovative outsourcing

British Airways (BA) is the world's largest international airline. Its inventory, reservations and departure control systems have supported the business for 30 years, underpinning many daily business processes. However, these systems were becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to maintain and enhance.

PA Consulting Group was invited to work closely with BA on a pioneering outsourcing contract. Under a 10-year program, Amadeus, a world leader in on-line computer reservation systems, will take on responsibility for the systems. Amadeus and BA will migrate all the reservations systems to new platforms that form the basis for new commercial services.

With PA's help BA has secured annual savings of over 20% on its IT operating and support costs and will avoid the need for substantial investments in systems development. In addition, BA will participate as a customer and development partner, sharing in the future success of Amadeus. BA will realize value from the intellectual property inherent in its systems, which are being used by Amadeus as the basis for its next-generation departure control system