APRIL 7TH, 2011

China Eastern prepares for global expansion with SITA corporate network solution

SITA, the airline IT specialist, today announced that China Eastern Airlines has gone live with a worldwide corporate network solution to support its global expansion plans as it merges with Shanghai Airlines and prepares to join the Skyteam alliance.

China Eastern Airlines, which has a fleet of more than 330 aircraft flying domestically and internationally to Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia, will now be supported by a global roll-out of SITA’s Application Performance Solution comprising IP VPN, the IPSec service and Integrated Traffic Management. These secure solutions will initially connect the airline’s Shanghai headquarters with Chicago, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Paris, Seoul, Taipei and Tokyo. SITA is also providing additional LAN services.

SITA’s Application Performance solutions come with a global customer service available 24/7, secure transmission of communications and cost-efficient connections. The project will bring significant cost savings and the higher bandwidth will allow use of more airline business applications for the airline which operates two hubs at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao International Airport.

Kevin Cai, CIO, China Eastern Airlines, said: “This new investment is best enabled by a single network provider like SITA. It will lay the groundwork to build a state-of-the-art infrastructure over a secure communications network. It’s a comprehensive solution designed to meet the increasing complexity of application performance. The ultimate beneficiaries will be our passengers as we improve the quality and availability of our services.”

In addition, SITA has deployed a proof of concept turnkey remote office infrastructure for the airline’s Japanese operations aimed at increasing China Eastern’s flexibility and speed in setting up new offices as the airline grows.

David Fu, SITA General Manager in China, said: “We are very pleased to be working with China Eastern Airlines on this important upgrade to its global network. It is further proof of how the smart deployment of IT can support an airline’s growth plans and bring about improved services for passengers.”