Amadeus, a supplier of IT solutions for the travel and tourism industry, has agreed to acquire Navitaire, a wholly owned subsidiary of Accenture that provides technology and business solutions to the airline industry. The size of the deal is $830 million. Navitaire, which focuses on the low-cost and hybrid-carrier segments of the airline industry and has a global customer base of more than 50 operators, provides revenue-generation and cost-streamlining solutions in the areas of reservations, ancillary sales, loyalty, revenue management, revenue accounting and business intelligence. The addition of Navitaire’s portfolio of products and solutions for the low-cost segment will complement Amadeus’ Altéa suite of offerings for its largely full-service carrier customer base, says Amadeus.

As part of the acquisition, approximately 550 Navitaire employees, including the company’s senior management team, are expected to transfer to Amadeus. Amadeus and Accenture expect to close the Navitaire acquisition in the fourth quarter of calendar 2015, following regulatory approvals. Amadeus expects the acquisition to have minimal impact on its financial performance in 2015.

In a separate agreement, Accenture and Amadeus have agreed to form an alliance jointly focus on digital travel services, with an emphasis on commercial passenger operations.  Under the alliance agreement, Accenture will be designated as an Amadeus “Strategic Partner” for its Airline IT business for management consulting, technology consulting, systems integration, business process outsourcing and digital services.

Accenture and Amadeus have also agreed to enter into a third agreement under which Accenture will provide Amadeus with infrastructure outsourcing, application and research and development services. Accenture will continue to provide hosting services for current Navitaire clients as well as Amadeus’s future clients that purchase the Navitaire solution.

[Image courtesy: Amadeus]