This post from the Amadeus Blog we do not want to withhold from you:
Amadeus News Board, 6 February 2019: Traveltainment says goodbye to the KATI format. For Stephanie Madée, Head of Solution Management Leisure Package Portfolio, and her team, it has been a moving moment – but: Long live OTDS!
“The service will be held in our hearts at St. OTDS Church” – even a small obituary was made by the colleagues, and on the office door of Katrin from the Solution Management team there is still a sign with the inscription: “I killed KATI”. I also have the e-mail of my colleague Savas from Provider Support in mind: “Folks! I think it’s the right time to say farewell to our veteran format now.” – I realized how much heart and soul went into it: There was a dedicated KATI team, KATI work steps became routine, and now Katrin has helped to actively switch off her favorite format. Whew!
Quantum leap 2006
The commissioning of the KATI format in 2006 was a real quantum leap. The manual data acquisition from the printed catalogue evolved into a digital and component-based data delivery. From now on, in addition to the “flat” INFX format, our tour operator customers were able to supply more extensive travel data in larger quantities on a daily basis. KATI confirmed the importance of Traveltainment at that time – we were able to offer tour operators a necessary technical solution that revolutionised the market. Over the past decade, we have continually incorporated new customer requests in this format – until it was time for the next innovation.
We now speak OTDS!
OTDS, the Open Travel Data Standard, now brings travel offers with the highest data quality into the sales channels. Also travelers benefit: the XML format precisionizes the production of travel offers, at the same time significantly more detailed information and a larger number of offers can be delivered. The travel search can be tailored precisely to the customer’s wishes via filters – all those are requirements in today’s travel sales.
In the leisure travel we now speak OTDS. By processing OTDS, we offer our customers the greatest possible scope for design and can further increase the data quality – which has absolute priority for us. With KATI, data had to be interpreted, rule lists were stored separately and an organiser could not forget to update them – an error-prone process. With OTDS, all rules are integrated into the format, pricing is more flexible and we can make “booking life” even more pleasant for travel agencies, for example with alternative flight options or the search for flight times.
Breakthrough in 2018
Such functionalities cannot be implemented overnight, but from now on we can concentrate on one format: All KATI data has been replaced by OTDS, INFX is phasing out, and we can concentrate on pushing OTDS features forward. By 2018, OTDS had already achieved its breakthrough: the data volume of the modern format had by far the largest share in the cache.
Allow me a few more days to enjoy the melancholic atmosphere – an era has come to an end in which many of my colleagues have made an important contribution. Traveltainment says thank you. And gives OTDS full throttle!
Source: Stephanie Madée, 6.02.2019 in the Amadeus News Board, https://newsboard.amadeus.com/i-killed-kati, accessed on 13.02.2019