Vignette Delivers New Online Presence for Saudi Arabian Airlines

Leading Saudi airline to offer new ‘travel community portal’ experience for its customers

Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, November 10, 2008 — Vignette (NASDAQ:VIGN), a global leader in Web experience management and delivery, today announced the delivery of a next-generation online presence for Saudi Arabian Airlines, the national airline of Saudi Arabia, that will enable the company to deliver a more sophisticated Web experience for its customers.

As part of a major restructuring, Saudi Arabian Airlines is enhancing its services across the whole of its business to help increase sales and improve its overall customer experience. Enhancing its Web presence was a key part of that strategy with the creation of a new global Web site (www.saudiairlines.com) - a user-centric ‘travel community portal’.

Previously the Web site had been a basic domain where customers could purely locate flight information. As the functionality of the Web continues to expand, Saudi Arabian Airlines wanted to re-address its Web site focus and produce a one-stop shop that offered visitors an all-encompassing travel experience, including flight information, ticket booking, car hire, hotel information and destination weather reports. A 2007 survey from JupiterResearch reveals that over 50 per cent of online leisure travellers purchased all or most of their personal travel online. This highlights the need for travel Web sites to create a more effective online booking portal for their customers.

Vignette Portal and Vignette Content Management (VCM) solutions were selected by Saudi Arabian Airlines. The Saudi Arabian Airlines Web site has now gone live and is able to integrate booking online via e-ticketing/electronic payments, Web check-in and baggage tracking. The Web site is also able to offer multi-language functionality (English, French and Arabic) that will enable customers to select their country setting and choose their preferred language. As Saudi Arabian Airlines now flies to over 55 international destinations, this adds an extra personalised dimension for explicit customer groups.

Vignette’s Web Experience foundation enables organizations to rapidly build and deliver a highly personalised experience to their customers, employees and partners, as well offering enterprise-class Web 2.0 and social networking functionality that help organizations acquire, serve and grow their customer base. VCM provides templates to manage the content, sites, content types and objects to deploy and deliver information. It also provides a workflow manager, a roles-based command centre to multiple Web sites, portals or devices, as well as essential library services.

“The new online presence for Saudi Arabian Airlines can help establish them as a leader in the Middle East’s travel industry and will give their customers a truly rich and personalised travel experience. This kind of personal and multichannel experience for customers in a social community Web setting can be especially beneficial in the travel industry and Saudi Arabian Airlines is truly leading the way,” said, Ian McEwan, Regional Vice President, Middle East, Europe and Africa, Vignette.

“Saudi Arabian Airlines recognises that the Web as a key tool in the further growth of the company. We chose Vignette as we wanted to secure our online future and are delighted to offer our customers enhanced services and a comprehensive travel experience.” said Hazem Sunbul, Manager of Sales Development, Saudi Arabian Airlines.

About Saudi Arabian Airlines
Saudi Arabian Airlines has been an essential part in Saudi Arabia’s overall development for more than sixty years since its launch back on the 27th of May 1945. On the airline’s fiftieth anniversary, the purchase of 61 new aircrafts to support the airline’s fleet in a deal unprecedented in the air transport industry was announced. The new aircrafts helped expand the domestic and international network, and doubled the number of passengers transported annually, whose numbers exceeded 18 million passengers in 2007.

On the other hand, modernizing the fleet is an ongoing process, in which Saudi Arabian Airlines continues to acquire all the necessary operational requirements. The fleet modernization plan included the acquisition of fifty Airbus 320 aircrafts, in addition to the purchase and lease of twelve Boeing 787 aircrafts. The airline will obtain eight broad-scale Airbus 330, with the capacity of 320 passengers, in the near future. This will bring the total number of new aircrafts to 70.

In 2006, the development of the privatization program took place; the first privatization step was marked by the privatization of Catering unit. To be followed by the privatization of Cargo, Ground Services, Maintenance, and Training units by the year 2009. Furthermore, the airline witnessed many positive efforts and initiatives to improve its service sectors through an integrated system. That included the modernization of its sales offices, reservation call center, Saudi Arabian Airlines website, Alfursan loyalty program, in addition to the development of OnBoard services.

Moreover and under the transition to the world of e-commerce, Saudi Arabian Airlines was keen on reconstructing its IT infrastructure by applying state of the art platforms through the signing of many contracts and agreements with major specialized companies, This includes an agreement to purchase an
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system followed by the implementation of a new planning schedules and Flight operations systems,. These agreements aim to enhance the airlines infrastructure and to keep up with the radical transformations witnessed by the aviation industry.

Saudi Arabian Airlines will continue its efforts to develop its overall performance and services to meet the challenges and cope with the international competition.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
The statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements including statements regarding the Company’s expectations, beliefs, hopes, intentions or strategies regarding the future. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Vignette’s products, future sales, market growth and competition. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based upon information available to the Company as of the date hereof, and the Company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement. Actual results could differ materially from the Company’s current expectations. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, Future Losses, Limited Operating History, Fluctuation of Quarterly Revenues and Operating Results, Acquisition Integration, Competition, Dependence on a Small Number of Large Orders, Lengthy Sales Cycle and Product Implementation, Market Awareness of Our Product, Rapid Changes in Technology and New Products, and other factors and risks discussed in the Company’s reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Vignette and the V Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vignette Corp. in the United States and other countries. All other names are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

About Vignette
Vignette provides software and services that deliver the Web’s most dynamic user experiences. The Vignette Web Experience brings rich media and engaging content to life for the world’s greatest brands. Vignette is headquartered in Austin, Texas with operations worldwide.
Visit www.vignette.com.

Nirmala Dsouza
PR Consultant
OAK Consulting
+971507343840
nimi@oakconsulting.biz

This release was published on openPR.