Vito Culmone, CFO, West Jet and Patrick Naef, Head of Mercator

WestJet, the leading low cost carrier and the second largest carrier in Canada, went live with   Mercator's outsourced passenger revenue accounting operations effective 20th November 2009 at its' bureau centre in Dubai.

Mercator's bureau service uses its industry leading revenue accounting solution, RAPID, which transforms the airline's ticket data into detailed financial and management information an airline needs for it's business decisions.

WestJet is expected to enjoy significant business benefits through this bureau operation, in its pursuit to gain 45% market share in Canada. The bureau offers extensive range of revenue accounting functionality such as electronic ticket data processing, proration, accounting, auditing, reconciliation, reporting and interline billing. This ISO9001 accredited Bureau service eliminates the need for expensive hardware and software at WestJet.

Duncan Alexander said: "This was one of our biggest projects this year not just due to its scale but also the complexity of assisting WestJet with their transition from a ticketless environment to an IATA ticketed one, whilst retaining many of the facets of a low cost airline with multiple revenue streams.  It is a shining example of our team's ability and excellent delivery record".

Mercator's bureau service already supports Emirates Airline, Malaysian Airlines, Olympic Air, Cyprus Airways, Virgin Nigeria, Air Tanzania and Air Tahiti Nui. The bureau is managed by IT, financial and airline experts with unrivalled experience, and the company has recently become a founder member of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals.

Mercator's already enjoys an impressive list of customers who use RAPID solution, and include Air Malawi, Air Mauritius, Air New Zealand, Air Niugini, Air Pacific, Air Zimbabwe, Avianca, British Airways,  Ethiopian Airways, Jet Airways, Kenya Airways,  MEA, Qantas, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Brunei, Singapore Airlines,  South African Airways, SriLankan, Syrian Arab Airlines, TACA, Varig and Yemenia.

To know more about Mercator IT Services please email us at info@mercator.com

Anisuddin Syed Muhammed, Product Manager for CRM & Loyalty at Mercator speaking at the Airline Information FFP Conference in LA

Mercator was well-represented at the 2009 Airline Information Loyalty conference in Los Angeles.  Delegates from around the world participated in the 5th Annual FFP Conference, which was held from 22 through 23 October.  Two presentations were given:  Customer Centric Strategy for Up-selling and Cross-Selling, and FFP Fraud Prevention.

Anisuddin Syed Muhammed, Product Manager for CRM & Loyalty at Mercator, spoke about a successful approach to up-selling and cross-selling which includes aligning people, processes, and technology; ensuring a culture of teamwork, customer focus, and value creation; and continuous learning.

He also underscored the role of technology, and added that it is an enabler of that success.  Having the right CRM and Loyalty solution at the core of a customer-centric business is critical.  Mercator designed "CRIS", Customer Relationship Information System,  to effectively manage customer relationships and frequent flyer programmes in a single integrated system.  CRIS provides a single view of relevant information to all touch points, integrates operational data stores, simplifies the consolidated data, and helps airlines and other companies greatly enhance the customer experience. This, in turn, helps create loyalty, and increase profitability.

Monitoring data and prevention of any untoward activity is critical to any business - and again, technology plays a role.  Mukund Srinivasan, Business Finance Manager and a recognised industry leader, spoke about ways to keep fraud in check through integrity control, clear policies and procedures, open communication channels, and continuous monitoring.  In this case, CRIS helps by checking for duplications, adherence to programme rules, and other security and accounting standards.

To know more about Mercator IT Services please email us at info@mercator.com

Last weekend saw the 40th anniversary of the annual Dubai Rugby 7s. This event, which was held over three days, attracted 1750 players worldwide with 16 international teams and 161 invited sides playing on the 6 available pitches. This event was expected to attract approximately 12,000 overseas visitors.

The venue for this amazing event was the Sevens 40,000 seat stadium for which Mercator supplied all the IT equipment for the 4th year running. Mercator provided all permanent and temporary IT infrastructure in the stadium, including provision of match day on site support for the RNS areas, the Media Room, Photographers Room, Judicial areas and Tournament offices.

Mercator also provided the IT requirements for the Rugby World Cup held in Dubai in April 2009.

"Mercator were our IT partners for the World cup .We found them to be totally reactive and in fact proactive. They guided us and set the requirements realistically and when there were any issues, as there always are in a dynamic set up and event, they were there to solve them .We could rely totally on their services." Donal Kilalea, Promoseven Tournament Organisers http://www.dubairugby7s.com/index.html

To know more about Mercator IT Services please email us at info@mercator.com

Mercator has signed a new contract with SAS for Sentinel. This extends their present license for SAS Norway to their other operations - SAS Denmark, Sweden and SAS Group companies - SAS Cargo and Ground handling.

Sentinel is an advanced safety information and reporting solution designed by safety professionals specifically for safety professionals. It monitors airline safety data, enabling users to quickly and accurately pinpoint potential areas of concern.

Sentinel efficiently captures safety related data and provides the right environment for a corporate culture that is safety aware. Information is entered into the system as incident reports, which can include everything from the seemingly trivial through to emergencies. All reports are filed in a data repository for trending and analysis.

Sentinel analyses this accumulated information and helps detect patterns and trends which are significant or may become significant. The results can be transmitted reliably and in real time to safety specialists within an organisation and can be shared with other Sentinel users around the world.

To know more about Mercator IT Services please email us at info@mercator.com

Mercator has successfully gone live with its specialised air cargo IT product, SkyChain, in Latin America to four airlines within Grupo TACA, these include: TACA International TACA Peru, Aviateca and LACSA.

SkyChain is designed to maximise business performance, help raise service quality and optimise resources. A highly automated system, which removes many of the time-consuming paper processes in the business; SkyChain is compliant with the latest industry developments, including IATA's e-freight initiative. 

TACA selected Mercator for their ability to meet the functional and technical requirements of its business model, help them align their business and systems strategy and differentiate TACA's product from the competition.

TACA now joins a growing family of users including Swiss World Cargo, Sri Lankan Cargo and Emirates SkyCargo. In turn they bring with them knowledge and experience of the Latin American air freight market, which enabled Mercator to create a tailor made solution for the group. One of SkyChain's many benefits is its ability to host multiple airlines within the same group - making it perfect for Grupo TACA.  These airlines can now share critical information, bringing substantial benefits in terms of organisational synergies and cost advantages.

To know more about Mercator IT Services please email us at info@mercator.com