Germany's Lufthansa has inked a deal with IBS Software, a leading IT solutions provider to the global aviation industry, to replace its legacy Unisys-based Crew Management applications with a new state-of-the-art crew management solution.

IBS was selected after a thorough evaluation process and iFlight Crew will now replace the legacy Unisys-based application which Lufthansa used for the past 30 years. Once implemented, this will be an important step for Lufthansa to modernise their crew management system. As part of this implementation, over 40 inbound/outbound interfaces would be built that will aid in crew rostering, crew scheduling, crew check-in, crew hotel and transport by facilitating seamless dataflow to the existing crew management applications. The multi-million Euro deal was formally signed by Dr. Roland Schütz, CIO of Lufthansa and V K Mathews, executive chairman of The IBS Group on the side lines of the IBS Customer Summit in Dubai.

IBS' airline crew management system, iFlight Crew, is an integrated software package which determines the most cost-effective use of airline crew at every stage from tactical manpower management through day-of-operations execution to disruption recovery. The solution is designed to support all types of airlines in all geographies and aligned to the industry-defined best practices of crew management. IBS' iFlight Crew solution powers some of the leading airlines in the world, including Emirates, British Airways, KLM, Jet Airways and Virgin Atlantic.

Speaking after signing the deal, Mathews said: "Lufthansa is an iconic name in the airline industry and to be chosen by them to augment their crew management capabilities, one of the most critical elements of airline operations, is a true endorsement of our capability, professionalism and commitment to support the requirements of global organisations. We have a long standing successful relationship with Lufthansa and there is nothing more gratifying than being called upon by an existing customer to cement this association even further. With this deal we have indeed become a strategic technology partner of Lufthansa through which we will add substantial business value to them in their pursuit of increased operational efficiencies and growth." - TradeArabia News Service