Vodafone has agreed a new seven-year multimillion euro deal with Ryanair to manage the airline's digital infrastructure.
While no financial details of the agreement have been disclosed, industry sources estimate the contract to be in the region of €40 million.
Under the new deal, which builds on a previous, smaller partnership, Vodafone is to provide technical support for 300 Ryanair sites and 200 million passengers across 40 countries, providing a range of solutions covering the cloud, unified communications, software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), Internet of Things (IoT), and security services.
The company products will be used to manage customer-facing activities such as online booking, passenger boarding and inflight transactions as well as managing the airline’s training facilities, offices and data centres.
“This new partnership agreement not only highlights the strength of Vodafone’s global ICT offering, but shows the trusted relationships we build with our customers. By working closely with Ryanair, our technical, product and account management teams in Vodafone Business will deliver against their business and technology requirements,” said Vodafone Ireland chief executive Anne O’Leary.
Simplifies
The new contract represents Vodafone Ireland’s largest ever rollout of SD-WAN, a technology that simplifies the management and operation of a wide area network by separating the hardware from its control mechanism.
John Hurley, Ryanair's chief technology officer, said the partnership would provide the airline with the technical support needed to allow it to make improvements quickly.
