Air Seychelles successfully completes move to Sabre technology

Air Seychelles’ switch to its new Sabre reservation and check-in platform at Mahe International and Praslin Airports has been successfully completed during this past weekend.

The first service handled under the new system was flight HM3143 which departed Praslin for Mahe at 2.20pm on 19 March. The first International flight was HM18 from Seychelles to Abu Dhabi at 8.25pm on the same day.

Roy Kinnear, Chief Executive Officer of Air Seychelles, said: “The cutover to the new Sabre reservation and check-in platform has been an outstanding operation involving hundreds of Air Seychelles staff and months of hard work. Whilst one will always expect some minor disruption during an implementation of this magnitude, it was very pleasing to see such a smooth transition in such a well-executed manner with our team committed to delivering it successfully and on time.

“To have achieved this cutover with such minimal disruption to our operations and guests, is testament to the excellent teamwork between Air Seychelles, Sabre Airline Solutions, and our partner Etihad Airways.

“We now have a reservation and check-in system that is world class, and we are confident it will provide a more customer friendly check-in experience, which at the same time will allow us to grow our operations commercially in the future. Once this new technology beds-in in the weeks ahead, we will focus on fast-follower items where we take the new system technology and introduce more new features, such as Web check-in.”

Jim Steinmark, VP Strategic Clients, Sabre Holdings, said: “Over the past eight months, teams from Air Seychelles and Sabre have worked closely on the successful migration onto our Sabre platform.  The success of the migration is directly related to the outstanding project management by both Air Seychelles and Sabre teams.

“We are confident that Sabre will deliver outstanding value to Air Seychelles, helping the airline to enhance the Air Seychelles’ guest travel experience.”

The cutover operation involved hundreds of Air Seychelles staff who initially implemented, tested and configured the new software.  Air Seychelles was assisted on-site by a large support team of more than 30 cutover experienced colleagues from Etihad Airways.  These professionals worked around the clock to ensure the smooth transition to the new Sabre system in the run up, during, and post cutover period.

Mr Kinnear concluded:  “Right from the start, the team at Air Seychelles was well prepared and fully focused on this important technology upgrade project.  Now that it has been implemented, we look forward to enhancing the check-in and transfer experience for our guests.  Given the complexity and size of the task faced over the weekend, I am incredibly proud of my team at Air Seychelles and our achievements.”

Joel Morgan, Chairman and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Transport visited the Air Seychelles SABRE Main Command Center on Sunday, 20 March to see the team in action and hear about the progress during the weekend cutover.  Minister Morgan expressed his pride in the national airline and its staff and said: ”For an airline the size of Air Seychelles to have completed a major technology change of this size in the speed in which they did so, is a testament to both the caliber of our staff and their “can do” attitude.

“We should all be very proud of what our team has achieved and I am looking forward to the benefits which this project delivers.”