SITA - Air Transport Communication and IT solutions.

A new standard in passenger processing has arrived with the announcement today that SITA is the first platform provider to achieve CUPPS (Common Use Passenger Processing System) compliance certification and to successfully complete its CUPPS Pilot program.

The SITA CUPPS Pilot started in January 2009 at Orlando International Airport with the check-in and boarding of WestJet passengers, followed recently by Continental Airlines passengers. The culmination comes today with the certification demonstrating that SITA’s platform is fully compliant with the pre-released version of the IATA (International Air Transport Association) CUPPS Technical Specification.

Catherine Mayer, SITA's Vice-President for Airport Services, said:“This is a great day for the air transport community as it brings common use passenger processing to a more efficient level. It is also another milestone in SITA’s long history of community leadership in the common use arena. SITA first developed CUTE (common user terminal equipment) with the airlines in 1984 and is now the first to receive certification for our platform using the new industry adopted CUPPS Recommended Practice.

“This certification demonstrates that our systems can run multiple applications according to the CUPPS standards. In fact, SITA’s AirportConnect Open is the only fully-integrated common use platform supporting CUPPS, CUTE, and web-based applications, as well as CUSS kiosk applications.”

SITA’s AirportConnect Open is a proven, stable platform that has been in operation since 2004. It provides a low-risk migration path to CUPPS compared with both new platforms that may be introduced by other companies and with existing platforms where CUPPS, CUTE, and CUSS Kiosk capabilities are not integrated as a single system.