Air Arabia CEO celebrates IT partnership with JKCS

Colombo, April 20, 2008
Mr. Adel Ali, Chief Executive Officer of UAE’s acclaimed low-fares airline Air Arabia, visited JKCS to commemorate a three-year long successful IT partnership. Chairman of John Keells Group, Mr. Susantha Ratnayake, welcomed Mr. Ali and his team and initiated discussions on the future of the joint venture.

		Air Arabia and John Keells entered into an IT joint venture in 2005 in Sharjah in a formal ceremony graced by His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Abdullah Al-Thani. The new company, chaired by Mr. Adel Ali was named Information Systems Associates (ISA) and was headquartered in Sharjah with the development centre located in Colombo and Hardware/ Infrastructure hosting facility in Dubai. ISA was established with the ambitious goal of expanding the contours of aviation software – particularly in the low-fares airline sphere. In its three years of existence, ISA has made huge strides in R&D to build its product portfolio and has successfully taken on industry juggernauts in winning a number of lucrative new airline deals.
Seated L-R: Ali Al Hamdany – Director ISA, Adel Ali – CEO Air Arabia/ Chairman ISA, Susantha Ratnayake – Chairman John Keells Group, Ajit Gunewardene – Deputy Chairman John Keells Group, Ronnie Peiris – Director ISA Standing L-R: Syed Ali – General Manager ISA, Dhananjaya Chandrasekera – CEO JKCS, Sujiva Dewaraja – Director ISA, Justin Hall – Business Development Manager ISA, Romesh David – Director ISA, Daminda Gamlath – CFO ISA

JKCS, which has engineered software solutions to the world’s leading airlines for ten years, has lent its best technical teams to the joint venture while Air Arabia has proved to be an invaluable source of domain expertise. This is a fruitful amalgamation as JKCS offers extensive experience in building and operating key airline systems such as reservations, cargo, commercial and flight operations while Air Arabia team members enable ISA to develop a deep understanding and insight into the unique challenges of the low-fares airline environment.

Starting with the flagship AccelAero reservation system - which was the biggest commercial airline IT project in Sri Lanka – JKCS engineering teams have developed a host of software solutions for ISA. Other systems include CESAR crew scheduling system, AccelAero Holidays booking system and AccelAero RM revenue management system. AccelAero Reservations is now live at four customer sites in Asia and Middle East with two new customers on stream, including one in Africa.

At the board meeting held at John Keells head office both Mr. Ali and Mr. Ratnayake appreciated the commendable growth of the joint venture in an immensely competitive industry dominated by long standing European and North American players. Mr. Ali was accompanied on his visit by Ali Al Hamdany - Director ISA, Mr. Justin Hall - Business Development Manager ISA and Mr. Syed Ali – General Manager ISA.

The joint venture now employs a dedicated business development team headed by Mr. Syed Ali and has sponsored a series of aviation events in London and Singapore. ISA hopes to widen its customer portfolio through an expanded product suite and extensive marketing. These growth plans were discussed at length between Mr. Ali and the ISA team and the Board members of John Keells Holdings at the recent commemoration.