Newest budget airline flies with Oracle, PortalUniverse

South Africa`s newest low-fare airline, 1time, will take to the air on 25 February supported by an airline reservation and departure control system designed to keep the company`s costs low, yet provide passengers with world-class service.

Portal Universe today launched PortalUniverse ARDCS, aimed at the local and international low-cost / low-fare airline market, and confirmed that 1time is the first airline to purchase the system.

1time starts operations on Wednesday, 25 February, with three return flights a day on the Johannesburg - Cape Town route. A passenger will pay R581 or less for any seat, on any flight and on any day.

Built on Oracle9i Database and Oracle`s latest Application Server 10g, PortalUniversARDCS consists of four components: a booking engine for public, call centre and airport office staff users; an airport operations system for check-in, boarding gate and baggage control; a financial function to maximise yield and revenue, and a corporate portal interface for authorised corporate clients to book at a pre-negotiated price per ticket.

"1time is privately owned and in a position to take advantage of unique opportunities to achieve operating costs materially lower than its competitors," says Rodney James, marketing and operations director at 1time. "As a result, passengers benefit from flying with an airline of world-class standard at low fares."

"1time`s Internet and call centre reservations system uses the latest Oracle technology which provides stability and is super-fast. PortalUniverse`s team of innovative experts made an enormous contribution to the successful implementation of our ARDCS. They understood how to convert our operational requirements into software applications that work."

A unique feature of PortalUniverse ARDCS is the way in which it pre-seats passengers at check-in, says Leonard Harley, managing director at Portal Universe. "When a passenger checks in with their ID and proof of payment, our ARDCS pre-seats them according to the loading pattern of the aircraft and then, within these parameters, they have a seating choice. We also cater for the management and payment of excess baggage in real-time at the check-in counter."

PortalUniverse ARDCS is pre-built using the latest Oracle Portal and Java technology and packaged as a high-end application for low-cost / low-fare airlines such as 1time. Says Harley: "We offer airlines a choice of two cost-effective and rapid implementation models; we can deploy and manage the system on their infrastructure of choice, or they can host their ARDCS on our infrastructure. Our clients may purchase a software licence to own and operate our ARDCS or they may elect a pay-for-use model based on a price per ticket. Because Oracle has aggressive licensing models, we are able to lower the upfront implementation cost, enabling our clients to benefit from a reduced total cost of ownership.

"Oracle technology supports rapid application development and has enabled us to quickly build competitive business applications in the South African market."

PortalUniverse has been an Oracle Partner Network member since 2002. With its ARDCS implementation with 1time, it becomes the first Oracle independent software vendor (ISV) in SA to implement a system running on Oracle Application Server 10g.