Qantas' CIO, Fiona Balfour, said further work on the project would be conducted in cooperation with partner British Airways and aviation systems provider Amadeus following completion of the first stage - transferring its ticketing, check-in and reservation systems to the Amadeus system over the weekend.
The second research and development centre is to be located in London.
Balfour said both airlines would contribute staff and funding to the project, which is due for completion by 2005.
"The project started off about three years ago, when we wanted to move our reservations systems forward and turn them into customer-centric systems," Balfour said. "Qantas and BA will be working together with Amadeus to develop the next phase and we'll be the first two airlines to implement the new systems."
Initially a joint venture between Scandanavia Airways, Air France, Iberia and Lufthansa, Amadeus was launched in 1987 to rival similar systems which were being developed in the US. However, the initial project involved a complete rebuild of airline reservations and ticketing systems and was not launched until 1992.
Presently, Amadeus hosts ticketing and reservation information for 109 airlines and itinerary details for more than 500 in a massive data centre on the outskirts of Munich, Germany.
"Basically we are now working in conjunction with BA and Qantas to develop a new generation of reservation systems," said Bill Spears, senior manager for corporate communications at Amadeus. "There is little competitive advantage for an airline in developing its own systems, it requires a huge investment, whereas with the Amadeus systems they are able to become part of a community already using the software and concentrate on what they are in business to do."
With the first phase of the long-awaited launch of the Amadeus system complete, Balfour said she would now be able to focus on other IT issues and purchasing decisions, which had been put on hold pending the release of the system.
"We have been very focussed on this project so we haven't formed a view yet on whether to adopt open source technologies, and other strategic IT decisions," Balfour said. "We run a very comprehensive IT strategy and portfolio, at any time we run up to 200 IT projects including four major operations, so that we are always looking at updating and changing different parts of our operations."
