Amadeus will acquire ICM Airport Technics, a Sydney-headquartered provider of passenger automation and self-service bag drop solutions for customers principally in Asia-Pacific and Europe.
Approximately 150 ICM employees are expected to join Amadeus. ICM will become part of Amadeus’ Airport IT division, forming part of its Strategic Growth Businesses customer unit. ICM will retain a local presence close to its customers via offices in both Sydney and Melbourne.
Amadeus and ICM expect the transaction, which will be fully cash-financed, to close in 2Q2019.
Richard Dinkelmann, CEO of ICM, pointed out the synergies between ICM’s self-service and passenger processing solutions and Amadeus’ global reach and complementary product offering.
Following this deal, Amadeus believes it will be in a stronger position to drive future growth in the sector as smart airports continue to invest in improving capacity and efficiency, while seeking one-stop solutions.
Bruno Spada, head of airport IT at Amadeus, said: “Often the passenger experience in airports is not a good one: long queues to check bags in and disparate services and technologies that do not always speak to each other.
“In essence, airports are crying out for open self-service solutions to help take the friction and hassle out of the airport experience for passengers. By combining Amadeus’ and ICM’s software and hardware capabilities, by accelerating and introducing more self-service options, and by using the power of biometrics, this deal announced today will ensure that together we can deliver better journeys for passengers in the future”.
Spada continued: “Importantly, customers continually tell us they need a strategic end-to-end solution in order to answer the evolving operational needs of the airport – they don’t want to have to work with multiple suppliers but rather single providers that can harness the best of the very latest technologies and who ultimately can ‘do it all’: this deal delivers just that.”
Since 2009, ICM has processed more than 75 million bags worldwide and is a global leader in providing airports with either retro-fitted or replacement type Auto Bag Drop (ABD) units. ICM serves around 25 airports. The company is also an early pioneer in biometrics for baggage processing.
