Ryanair has chosen Vodafone Business as its technology communications partner in Europe. The new seven-year agreement builds on an existing relationship and focuses on the experience of Ryanair’s customers in reaching their destinations on time.
The outcome-driven agreement provides services that touch every point of the Ryanair passenger journey, driving continuous innovation to deliver digital transformation, business growth and operational efficiencies. Under the agreement, Vodafone Business will transform Ryanair’s information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure using every part of Vodafone Business’ solutions – including cloud, unified communications, software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), Internet of Things (IoT) and security services.
Vodafone Business will support 300 Ryanair sites and some 153 million passengers across 40 countries, meaning that up to 95% of Ryanair’s telecoms will be managed directly by Vodafone Business. This includes the hosting of its core infrastructure that maintains Ryanair’s core business processes from online booking, passenger boarding and in-flight transactions, to training centres, offices and data centres.
Airlines, like any other business, are under pressure to respond to fast-changing customer demands and putting the right technology in place today allows any organisation to be future ready. Vodafone Business Connected Airport allows Ryanair to connect a new airport or site in just 10 days, giving them the ability to adapt quickly and provide new options for their customers.
Having the right technology in place also supports the fast turnaround of planes, which is an important factor in an airline’s profitability. Ryanair currently has 20,000 global IoT connections with Vodafone Business used by their aircrew to connect their tablets and handheld devices.
Vinod Kumar, CEO, Vodafone Business, says: “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, Vodafone Ireland comments: “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.
“This new agreement also represents Vodafone’s largest rollout of SD-WAN to date, which I’m delighted to say, is being managed in Ireland for delivery across 40 countries. SD-WAN provides customers with a greater level of control and autonomy over their network and greater insight into its performance, while saving time and cost. Furthermore, the beauty of the software element of this new network is that it will allow Ryanair to deploy quickly, securely, and without major disruption to existing network architecture and activities.”
“Over the last 30 years, Ryanair has revolutionised and democratised air travel for European citizens,” says John Hurley, CTO of Ryanair, “growing to become Europe’s largest airline with the widest route network, connecting more than 200 destinations in 40 countries on the lowest fares.
“As part of our commitment to low fares, more choice, and great care, we’re continuing to enhance the Ryanair experience for our 153m annual customers, and this extended partnership with Vodafone 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.”
SD-WAN allows businesses to connect over Public, Private networks and the Cloud; and intelligently orchestrates that connectivity over the best available transport mechanism in the network, whether through multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), internet, mobile or a combination of all three – enabling the ten-day turnaround for site connection.
Once set up, SD- WAN allows customers to view and control their network traffic so they can adjust resources and route connectivity to different parts of their organisation on demand. It also provides businesses with inbuilt analytics to help the network respond faster to needs and anticipate demand.
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