BUSINESS NEWS
Amadeus completes €320m acquisition of Vision-Box
Amadeus has completed the €320 million acquisition of Vision-Box, announced in January, having received “all necessary regulatory approvals”. Lisbon-based Vision-Box is
a specialist in biometrics and automated border control, which Amadeus said would allow it to deliver “a fully integrated
(NDC) technology for travel intermediaries. Vision-Box was founded in 2001
Vision-Box specialises in automated
border control
traveller journey from booking to arrival at the airport, border control and boarding”. Amadeus provides
airline booking and boarding technology as well as its GDS and new distribution capability
by chief executive Miguel Leitmann, who will join Amadeus along with the company’s 470 employees. Vision-Box had been majority owned by Paris-based private equity fund Keensight Capital since 2015. It recorded revenue of €70 million and an operating profit of €20 million in 2023. Announcing the deal, Amadeus
said the automated border control market is expected to grow from $48 billion in value last year to $86 billion in 2028.
Investment group buys US TMC Direct Travel
Ian Taylor
US travel management company Direct Travel has been acquired by an investment group led by Steve Singh, co-founder and former chief executive of travel expense management company Concur. Direct Travel, based in Denver,
operates chiefly in the US and Canada where it has more than 4,500 mid-market corporate clients and reported $7 billion in sales, but it is a partner with UK-based ATPI in Europe with which it established Direct ATPI Global Travel in 2017. Singh is now managing director
of US venture capital fund Madrona Venture Group and his co-investors include Durable Capital Partners, Top Tier Capital and Blackstone Credit and Insurance. The deal, for an undisclosed sum,
will see Singh become executive chair of Direct Travel and Christal Bemont, a former senior Concur executive and
travelweekly.co.uk
head of data management company Talend, take over as chief executive from Ed Adams who founded the company in 2011. Announcing the acquisition,
Singh said: “We’ll invest to meet our customers’ current needs, grow our customer base, expand the number of markets we serve and [expand] the breadth of products we deliver.” Bemont told Travel Weekly:
“This is probably an inflection point in the industry. We’re seeing new types of travel for meetings, events and leisure. “People may be more distributed
[at work] and have not all returned to the office, but they have to get together.” She added: “The technology has
not been there until now to solve some of the problems we’re trying to solve.” She suggested open-source
technology and AI “can facilitate a larger proportion of transactions”. But said: “With all the technology
Christal Bemont, Direct Travel
available, and as good as the technology is, you still need great people to service customers.” Bemont said Direct Travel had
“fared extremely well” through the pandemic and “came out with 98% customer retention”, but added: “This is an opportunity to expand geographically and to go upmarket.” She said it would be “business as usual” with the ATPI partnership.
11 APRIL 2024 47
Iata hails recovery but figures conflict with European data
Airline association Iata hailed a “full recovery” in air passenger traffic to pre-Covid levels as it released traffic data for February. But two qualifications are important in interpretating the data. Iata reported total passenger
traffic in the month up 5.7% on February 2019, with domestic traffic 13.7% ahead of 2019 and international traffic 0.9% ahead. Those figures conflict with the
February data from European air navigation organisation Eurocontrol, which reported airline capacity in February was nine percentage points below the February 2019 level (Travel Weekly, April 4). Iata records traffic in revenue
passenger-kilometres (RPKs), a measure of the distance flown by paying passengers, whereas Eurocontrol reports the number of flights. The latter could miss an increase in the number of passengers if aircraft operate fuller or are larger than pre-Covid. However, the Iata measure is
open to greater distortion because the war in Ukraine and closure of Russian airspace to many carriers has increased the length of flights between Europe, the Middle East and Asia, in some cases by two to three hours. This would inflate the RPK figures.
Iata data shows passenger traffic is above pre- pandemic levels
PICTURE: Shutterstock/1000 words
PICTURE: Shutterstock/Ceri Breeze
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