SITA hybrid network to provide $4.5m cost savings to SriLankan Airlines
Source: SITA 21/10/2009
SITA, the leading specialist in air transport IT and Communications, today announced that it has signed a five-year contract to implement an advanced global IP network for SriLankan Airlines. The hybrid network, which will cover 44 sites across 19 countries, will save the airline $4.5 million, or 25%, on communication costs each year.
SriLankan’s CEO, Manoj Gunawardena, said: “As a small airline with a global network and reputation for service, SriLankan Airlines firmly believes in the need to reduce costs to tide over the prevailing global economic crisis. Our airline has achieved remarkable cost savings in all operational areas over the last 12 months, and we are pressing ahead with initiatives to further enhance that performance during the current financial year. The cost savings to be achieved through SITA’s new system will be an important part of that.”
SriLankan, which has used SITA Communication Services for the past ten years through an indirect channel, selected SITA to design and implement the new data network and messaging services to support the current and future needs of the airline. In addition, SITA is supplying the airline local expertise support for its server infrastructure across its 44 sites.
Kamal Nanayakkara, Head of IT, SriLankan Airlines, said: “Based on our long and fruitful experience with SITA over many years we knew that they could tailor services to our exact needs. This global, hybrid IP network from SITA is designed to deliver immediate cost savings to us, which is vital in this challenging economic environment. It will have the added benefit of greater bandwidth which will improve the performance of our current IT applications and serves as a platform for future applications and services.
“In addition, the Server Support solution is a one-stop-shop service from SITA where they will deliver the global, yet local support we need.”
SITA is providing a new Virtual Private Network (VPN) for SriLankan Airlines’ sites which will be created using the internet as a communication infrastructure and will be provided using SITA’s Internet Service Provider (ISP) service. This hybrid network allows traffic to be balanced securely across the appropriate service, IP VPN or the IPSec tunnel over the internet.
Hani El Assaad, SITA Regional Vice-President, Middle East and Turkey said: “As we worked with the team at SriLankan Airlines it was clear that cost savings for their communications were a priority but not at the expense of efficiency and security.
“The service we are providing includes the highest levels of security features as well as a site-to-site VPN for secure encrypted connections over the public internet while delivering $4.5 million cost savings to the airline.”
