Amadeus Reports Slight Rise In 2008 Revenue

Amadeus today announced that its annual revenue increased 2.2 percent to €2.86 billion in 2008 as the privately held travel technology and distribution company implemented a new airline IT system, expanded its focus in the Americas and launched its new Airline Retailing Platform.

President and CEO David Jones noted that much of the company's net gains came in the first half of the year. "Amadeus' business showed a reassuring degree of resilience against the extraordinary financial and trading environment of the second half of last year," Jones said in a statement. "2008 was very much a year of two halves: a very strong first-year performance combined with the well-documented collapse in demand in the last six months meant we ended the year about level with 2007."

The second-half decreases have carried over into 2009 as travel agency bookings decreased 9.1 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2008. Travelport GDS's total first-quarter segments decreased 16 percent to 90.4 million.

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