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UK Gains Access to Acclaimed Microsoft(R) Windows-Based Low-Fare Shopping Technology: Worldspan E-Pricing(SM)

Posted on: Thursday, 4 May 2006, 09:03 CDT

ATLANTA, May 4 /PRNewswire/ -- The travel industry's most advanced low- fare shopping technology, Worldspan e-Pricing, has been introduced to Worldspan travel agency, airline and online customers throughout the United Kingdom. E-Pricing is the GDS industry's first multi-server-based shopping technology built on the Microsoft Windows(R) platform and first to offer flexible shopping options through a GDS. It offers the same powerful shopping and booking tools in use by the majority of the world's largest travel Web sites, including the full suite of e-Pricing Flex Shopping Options. In an aggressive rollout schedule, e-Pricing will become available across Europe by mid-2006.

"Working with our technology partner Microsoft and the flexibility of their Windows operating environment, we have provided our customers with low- fare shopping capabilities that were previously unthinkable in the travel industry," said Sue Powers, CIO and senior vice president - Worldwide Product Solutions for Worldspan. "With e-Pricing, Worldspan customers have the most highly developed and flexible shopping tools for delivering the abundant choices travelers expect from retailers today."

"Worldspan e-Pricing is a complex application that demands reliability and performance," said Peter Boit, vice president, Commercial Sector, Enterprise and Partner Group, at Microsoft. "Reliability, scalability and uptime are of extremely high concern to Worldspan and its customers, and our products and technologies have been instrumental in helping e-Pricing achieve its required performance levels. We're pleased to fill a critical role in advancing global travel technology and look forward to helping Worldspan deploy the benefits of this solution to travel companies worldwide."

The e-Pricing server complex, which has processed more than 4.7 billion transactions to date, is Worldspan's largest non-mainframe application, consisting of 1,182 production servers, plus another 58 servers for testing and staging. Building e-Pricing on the Windows operating system enabled Worldspan to develop and deploy the application in a more cost-effective operating environment than was available in the mainframe. Additionally, the Windows operating system has enabled Worldspan to dramatically increase system performance, reduce new development deployment time and offer rapid scalability and broader global applications.

Substantially More Shopping Power: The e-Pricing platform broadens the already renowned capabilities of Worldspan Power Shopper(SM). The advanced e- Pricing server complex has the capacity to deliver substantially more low-fare results. For example, e-Pricing searches millions of fares instead of the hundreds of thousands of fares shopped by Power Product technology in the previous mainframe environment. E-Pricing also searches tens of thousands of itineraries, compared to just thousands, and analyzes hundreds of best available trips, rather than dozens. Also, the default number of itinerary options returned at the Standard Tier has doubled compared to Worldspan Power Shopper, returning up to 20 low-fare options instead of just 10.

E-Pricing is available to Worldspan customers in the UK at three tier levels:

* The Standard Tier delivers up to 20 low-fare itinerary options in one search and offers access to Flex One-Day shopping, a tool that lets travel buyers retrieve lower fares by searching one day before and one day after original departure and return dates.

* The Mid-Level Tier delivers up to 32 low-fare options in one search and three Flex Shopping Options: Flex One-Day, as well as Flex Airports (searches up to three alternate airports defined by the user for the origin and/or destination), and Flex O&D (searches up to three alternate airports in a 160- kilometer radius of the origin or destination).

* The Premium Tier delivers up to 100 low-fare options and access to the full suite of Flex Shopping Options: Flex One-Day, Flex Airports (searches up to six alternate airports defined by the user for the origin and/or destination) and Flex O&D (searches up to six alternates airports in a 100- mile radius of the origin or destination), as well as Flex More-Days (expands searches by one, two or three days before and/or after the original departure and return dates), and Flex Weekend (searches Thursday, Friday and Saturday departures with Sunday, Monday and Tuesday returns for the whole month of travel).

About Worldspan, L.P.

Worldspan is a leader in travel technology services for travel suppliers, travel agencies, e-commerce sites and corporations worldwide. Utilizing some of the fastest, most flexible and efficient networks and computing technologies, Worldspan provides comprehensive electronic data services linking approximately 800 travel suppliers around the world to a global customer base. Worldspan offers industry-leading Fares and Pricing technology such as Worldspan e-Pricing(SM), hosting solutions, and customized travel products. Worldspan enables travel suppliers, distributors and corporations to reduce costs and increase productivity with technology like Worldspan Go!(SM) and Worldspan Trip Manager(R) XE. Worldspan is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Additional information is available at http://www.worldspan.com/.

Statements in this release and any exhibits hereto which are not purely historical facts, including statements about forecasted financial projections or other statements about anticipations, beliefs, expectations, hopes, intentions or strategies for the future, may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based upon information available to Worldspan, L.P. ("the Company") on the date this release was submitted. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Any forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from the events or results described in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, risks and uncertainties related to: the Company's revenue being highly dependent on the travel and transportation industries; airlines limiting their participation in travel marketing and distribution services; airlines altering their content or changing the pricing of such content; or other changes within, or that may affect the travel industry or the Company. More information on potential risks and uncertainties is available in the Company's recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's annual Form 10-K report, Forms 10-Q, Forms 8-K and Form S-4.

Worldspan and all other Worldspan marks identified with a (R) or SM contained herein are either registered marks or service marks or trademarks of Worldspan, L.P. throughout the world.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Worldspan

CONTACT: Erin Hadaway of Worldspan, +1-770-563-6545, orerin.hadaway@worldspan.com

Web site: http://www.worldspan.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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