South African Airways Takes Off With Teradata; Region's Largest Airli

    Business Editors

    SALZBURG, Austria--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2005--Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation (NYSE:NCR), today announced that South African Airways (SAA) has chosen Teradata as its platform for enterprise data warehousing. The initial goal of the new half-terabyte data warehouse is to consolidate data from a number of SAA's existing data marts, while greatly increasing the performance of analysis by end-users. The new platform will serve as the foundation for a series of business improvement initiatives, in areas including revenue management, financial management and customer relationship management.
    The new data warehouse, which is project-managed, implemented and supported by Teradata reseller Bytes Specialised Solutions, will also return significant cost savings to SAA by reducing the licensing and support costs involved in operating multiple data marts.
    In the second stage of the project, the new Teradata(R) warehouse will act as a single repository for all passenger name records (PNR), as well as ticketing and departure-control data. SAA will also utilize the Teradata Travel Logical Data Model, designed to provide the structured framework for all data in the business. With this, SAA will be able to increase the consistency and quality of its PNR data and consequently improve the effectiveness of its data analysis.
    For example, this single view of all data will enable SAA to establish and analyze passenger behavior such as show rates, allowing it to predict more accurately which passengers will turn up for flights and which ones will not. While most airlines use aggregated data to determine how they should book for a flight, SAA will be able to forecast demand for each flight with greater precision based on analysis of detailed PNR data. Combining this with ticketing and flown data also stored in the data warehouse will enable SAA to optimize profitability of their available seat capacity.
    "If SAA are to compete with larger airlines in an aggressive market it is imperative that we maximize the value of our data assets to the business. Teradata has provided a cost-effective platform with which we can harness our data to improve revenue management, capacity planning and customer understanding," said Andy Hayward, chief information officer at SAA. "The new data warehouse has already enabled us to make significant savings in licensing and support costs, while vastly improving the speed of our data analysis capabilities. The increase in performance from the Teradata system has been phenomenal."
    SAA will realize considerable operational savings by consolidating its current data-mart architecture, based on a series of department or function-specific databases, onto a single enterprise data warehouse. SAA has been able to decommission 13 separate data marts in favor of a single data warehouse. Research shows that the costs of supporting and maintaining a separate data mart averages between $1 million and $2 million per annum.(1)
    In addition to PNR data, SAA also plans to consolidate customer, financial and operational data onto the data warehouse in the near future, to support further business improvement initiatives. Developing a single view of the organization in this way will, for example, enable the airline to better develop its customer relationship management strategy, by improving customer segmentation and valuation capabilities.
    "South African Airways has successfully demonstrated that you do not need multiple terabytes of information to gain business advantage from data warehousing," commented Hermann Wimmer, Teradata vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "Not only will SAA make significant cost savings but our internal research has shown that by integrating passenger name record data for revenue-management analysis, SAA can increase revenues by up to 4 percent. This, combined with their journey towards a single view of their business, will put SAA at the forefront of mid-sized carriers."

    (1) AMR Research (2002) - 'Five High-Value Infrastructure Projects
    for 2003', Bob Parker.

    About South African Airways

    South African Airways (SAA) is Africa's award-winning airline servicing more than 20 destinations across the continent. The airline, founded in 1934, makes it easier for passengers to connect to various destinations. Internationally, the airline has partnership with 11 airlines: British Midlands International, Cathay Pacific, Delta Airlines, El Al, Air France, Emirates, Lufthansa, Qantas Airlines, Ethiopian, Varig and Air Tanzania. SAA has applied to join Star Alliance, a network of more than 16 airlines who share facilities such as lounges, frequent flyer miles and connections to make travelling easier for passengers.
    When SAA has been fully integrated into the alliance sometime in 2005, its customers will enjoy the following benefits: Access to 700 airports in 128 countries; access to over 550 lounges; the possibility of earning and redeeming frequent flyer miles or points on any member airline; world-wide recognition of status; priority reservation, standby and boarding for Star Alliance Gold members; priority baggage handling for Star Alliance Gold members, First and Business Class travellers and the most flexible round-the-world fares.
    The partnership with other airlines allows SAA's passengers to reach more than 700 destinations across the world. SAA carries more than 6.5 million passengers a year and flies to more than 40 cities in 30 countries on six continents. Since January this Year, SAA has won eight awards, including Best African Airline, Best Domestic Airline, Best International Airline flying to South Africa, Best Cabin Crew in Africa, Best Airline Based in Africa.

    About Teradata Division

    Teradata (www.teradata.com), a division of NCR Corporation (NYSE:NCR), is the global technology leader in enterprise data warehousing, analytic applications and data warehousing services. Organizations around the world rely on the power of Teradata's award-winning solutions to get a single, integrated view of their business to enhance decision-making, customer relationships and profitability.

    About NCR Corporation

    NCR Corporation (NYSE:NCR) is a leading global technology company helping businesses build stronger relationships with their customers. NCR's ATMs, retail systems, Teradata(R) data warehouses and IT services provide Relationship Technology(TM) solutions that maximize the value of customer interactions and help organizations create a stronger competitive position. NCR (www.ncr.com) is based in Dayton, Ohio.
    NCR and Teradata are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCR Corporation in the United States and other countries.

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CONTACT: NCR Corporation Teradata Division Marchela Roca, 770-623-7024 marchela.roca@teradata-ncr.com or Harvard Public Relations Simon Rothwell, +44 (0) 20 8759 0005 simon.rothwell@harvard.co.uk

KEYWORD: OHIO SOUTH AFRICA AUSTRIA INTERNATIONAL EUROPE AFRICA/MIDDLE EAST INDUSTRY KEYWORD: HARDWARE TRAVEL AIRLINES TRANSPORTATION SOFTWARE MARKETING AGREEMENTS SOURCE: NCR Corporation

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