From left: Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary and Vodafone Ireland CEO Anne O'Leary. Image: Fennell Photography
Vodafone will host the infrastructure for Ryanair’s core business processes, including online booking, passenger boarding and in-flight transactions.
Today (20 November), Ryanair announced that it has reached a seven-year agreement with Vodafone Business as its technology communications partner in Europe. The deal builds on an existing relationship between the two companies.
In a statement, the Irish budget airline said that the agreement provides services that “touch every point of the passenger journey”.
Under the agreement, Vodafone Business will “transform” the airline’s information and communication technology infrastructure, using every aspect of the telecoms company’s business solutions, including cloud, unified communications, software-defined wide area network, IoT and security services.
While no financial details of the deal were disclosed, the Irish Times reports that industry sources estimate the contract to be in the region of €40 million.
Core infrastructure
Vodafone Business will support 300 Ryanair sites and around 200m passengers across 40 countries, meaning that up to 95pc of the airline company’s telecoms will be managed directly by Vodafone.
This will include the hosting of the infrastructure that maintains Ryanair’s core business processes from online booking, passenger boarding and in-flight transactions, to training centres, offices and data centres.
Vinod Kumar, CEO of Vodafone Business, said: “We’re delighted to build on our existing relationship with Ryanair, continuing as their trusted technology partner in helping them to grow their business. Airline passengers will demand even more in the coming years, and we will work alongside Ryanair to help them prepare for the future using our full portfolio of products and services.”
Anne O’Leary, CEO of Vodafone Ireland, added: “This new partnership agreement not only highlights the strength of Vodafone’s global ICT offering, but shows the trusted relationships we build with our customers.
“By working closely with Ryanair, our technical, product and account management teams in Vodafone Business will deliver against their business and technology requirements over the next seven years through the utilisation of our full portfolio of products and services.”
Ryanair’s CTO, John Hurley, said that the extended partnership “will provide us with the technical support to allow us to make improvements quickly and seamlessly, including migration to a new wide area network that will enable Ryanair be more agile in its connectivity”.
