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ational flag carrier Garuda Indonesia will use a new reservation technology provided by Spain’s Amadeus Altea to attract more international passengers in the coming years.

“The PSS community system will enable us to further enhance our networks with the Sky Team, which comprises 15 airlines,” Garuda Indonesia sales and marketing director Arif Wibowo said in Jakarta on Friday after the signing of the Service Agreement for Passenger Services System with the Spanish based technology provider for global travel and tourism industry Amadeus Altea.

The airline’s international route passengers throughout last year reached up to 3.2 million.

The Amadeus system will replace the airline’s existing reservation system, Arga, which has been used since 1997.

The PSS system will help Garuda’s passengers connect their flights with other flights provided by the Sky Team community such as KLM, Air France, TAROM, Czech Airlines, and Air Europa in a single flight number.

Sky Team members cover 926 destinations worldwide and the passenger traffic has reached 151 millions.

At present, Garuda Indonesia flies to 19 international routes in Southeast Asia, East Asia, Middle East, Amsterdam, and Australia and 36 domestic routes.

“Today, technology is a critical component of an airline’s infrastructure, and this new system will help us remain competitive among world class airlines in the region,” he said.

He also said that the new technology was part of the Garuda Indonesia Quantum Leap Program, which set targets for the airline to have 154 aircraft with an average fleet age of 5 years and 32.5 million passengers in 2015.

In addition, Amadeus Asia Pacific vice president John Chapman said that Garuda’s transformation and growth had been one of the most impressive success stories in Asia Pacific aviation in recent years.

“Amadeus technology solution will enable Garuda to refine its check-in and airport handling process, and benefit from the automation of currently manual tasks. We also will enable Garuda to continue their impressive growth trajectory and efficiently join the Sky Team alliance,” John said.

He said that the system had been used by more than 115 leading carriers worldwide, including Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Soffi, Lufthansa, Qantas, Thai Airways, ANA and Royal Brunei.

He said that Amadeus was in the middle of a discussion with other local airlines in the country.

However, he said that an agreement was unlikely to be reached this year.

Garuda will receive 21 new aircraft; consisting of four Boeing B737-800 Next Generation (NG) aircraft, two Airbus A330-200 aircraft, 10 A320 aircraft for Citilink, and give sub-100 Bombardier CRJ1000 NextGen aircraft.

So far, the airline has received one B737-800 NG and a single A330-320 in February.

This year, the airline’s fleet will increase to 105 aircraft, of an average age of 5.5 years. (nfo)