By Business & Finance 
Pictured: Vodafone Ireland enterprise director, Anne Sheehan
Vodafone Ireland has today announced details of its partnership with Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, to provide 95% of the carrier’s telecoms, machine to machine and communications needs.
The agreement will facilitate Ryanair’s teams including pilots and cabin crew with up to the minute information, improving the overall customer experience within the airline.
The partnership signifies Vodafone’s increased capabilities to provide large scale business with a full complement of communications and IT solutions. Vodafone will support ticketing, check-in, ground crews, in-flight crews and pilots with telephony, fixed line and mobile 3G and 4G functionality across Ryanair’s 189 locations in Europe and North Africa.
Commenting on the partnership, Vodafone Ireland enterprise director, Anne Sheehan, said: “This business partnership is one of the most significant for Vodafone Ireland to date, demonstrating our total communications capabilities by providing complete end-to-end solutions tailored to Ryanair’s requirements across 189 locations in Europe.
She added: “Ryanair is a company that is driving innovative technology solutions in the airline industry and Vodafone is delighted to partner with them to drive this evolution.”
Ryanair’s chief technology officer, John Hurley said: “As part of our ‘Always Getting Better’ improvement programme, we’re continuing to enhance the Ryanair experience for our 90 million customers annually. This partnership with Vodafone will provide us with the technical support to allow us to make these improvements quickly and seamlessly, including the introduction of paperless cockpits and a swifter inflight sales system.”
Part of the initiative is the introduction of the electronic flight bag that will remove paper from the cockpit which is fundamental to Ryanair’s strategy. In addition, Vodafone will support the on-board electronic point of sale (EPOS) devices used for in-flight credit card sales. From April 2015 Ryanair crew will be issued with 8,000 new handheld devices with machine to machine connectivity which will create a secure managed connection to sync data with credit card companies when the plane lands.
Vodafone Machine-to-Machine (M2M) connects previously isolated machines or devices to the internet, delivering new functionality and enhanced services without the need for human intervention. Supported by more than 1,300 dedicated employees, Vodafone’s global M2M platform makes it easy for global businesses to manage centrally M2M deployments across multiple territories, with greater control and at a lower cost than previously possible. In 2014 Vodafone was named global M2M leader by Machina Research, for the third year in a row.
