Karachi, 7 March 2007 – Abacus International, Asia Pacific’s leading travel facilitator today announced the Pakistan launch of a major new airfare pricing system which delivers more fare options for travel agent fare queries, while improving the efficiency of the fares and pricing process by over 50%.

Abacus International CEO and President Mr Don Birch said the launch of Abacus SmartPrice would boost the competitiveness of Pakistan travel agents in the battle for best fares, and followed extensive research into the needs of corporate and retail travel agents across Asia Pacific.

“Abacus SmartPrice will allow our network of more than 15,000 travel agency locations to search for the best fares with far greater reach and accuracy than existing solutions, accessing up to 650 qualifying fares from up to 32 airlines from a single simple enquiry,” Mr Birch says.

Powered by a new pricing logic developed by Abacus and its technology partner Sabre at a cost of over US$100 million, Abacus SmartPrice delivers the true lowest applicable fare as it searches in both private and public tarrifs, to deliver a choice that includes net and published fares.

A new targeted low fare search feature allows travel agents to focus solely on the cheapest possible price with alternate itinerary options. This is a response to the growing demand from travel agents who are looking for the lowest fare available.

“Abacus SmartPrice will help keep the travel agent in the driver’s seat of the industry by giving them access to an extremely broad, segmented, accurate and rich range of airfare content with which to serve the increasingly complex needs of travelers,” Mr Birch said.

The new solution will meet the need of Pakistan’s travel agencies to find more efficient ways of working says Mr Sam Wong, General Manager of Abacus Distribution Systems (Pvt) Ltd in Pakistan.

“Previously agents have to rely heavily on their own knowledge to search for possible alternative routes and carriers. By contrast, Abacus SmartPrice sources all the relevant alternatives and displays them in a single integrated screen; taking out the guess work and speeding up the fare pricing process,” Mr Wong said.

Airlines will benefit from the rapid, automated uploading process for new and revised fares which are made promptly available to agents for sale. Changes in international and domestic airline fares, rules, routings and footnotes are also electronically received and processed up to six times daily ensuring timely, accurate airfare content.

Mr. Rafiq Khan, Chairman Bukhari Group, said the integrated fare search options placed a great deal more power at the finger tips of travel agents.

“Instead of travel agent querying individual searches for every alternative fares, Abacus SmartPrice anticipates the need for alternatives – and delivers them in a single screen,” Mr Khan said.

Mr. Amir, Kiyani, CEO, Proficient Travels said, “With our travel agents dealing with hundreds of transactions every week, the productivity savings from such a comprehensive range of fares sourced from a single fare search will be considerable, not to mention making it a lot simpler for our staff and reducing the need for complex training.”

Abacus is working closely with leading airlines operating in the Pakistan market over the introduction of Abacus SmartPrice and other initiatives to improve the competitiveness of the Pakistan travel industry. Airlines welcomed the fast airfare loading features of the solution

“From the Airline’s point of view the speed and frequency at which Abacus SmartPrice updates the fares, ensures that the latest and best fares are in the hands of travel agents at the soonest,” said Mr Ranju Selvadurai General Manager for Pakistan & Afghanistan, Gulf Air.

Reinforcing this point Mr Abdullah I. Alazhari of Saudi Arabian Airways said “We believe the precise rule validations offered by Abacus SmartPrice will eliminate the stress and expense of Airline Debit Memos.”

“The development of Abacus SmartPrice to meet the needs of both travel agents and airlines will reinforce Abacus’ role as Asia Pacific’s leading travel facilitator, managing more than 50 million bookings per year, and will reinforce the continuing competitiveness of the travel industry in Pakistan,” Mr Birch said.