China's main GDS provider, Travelsky Technology Ltd. has stated that SITA is carrying out major improvements to its technology platform including the installation of a disaster-recovery data centre in Beijing as the country gears up for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Airlines around the world are expected to increase the number of flights arriving in Beijing by over 70% during the Olympic Games. It is estimated that air traffic will peak three days before the Games Opening Ceremony on August 8 and three days after the closing ceremony on August 24 with an average of 1,900 flights per day compared to the usual average of 1,150.

Wang Ying Chun, Travelsky's Chief Financial Officer, said: "We are working with SITA to ensure that foreign carriers can have the best possible links to their airline reservation systems. We are also setting up a disaster-recovery data centre to ensure reliable back-up support to airlines during the Olympic Games."

"We are not taking any chances. SITA will provide separate WAN connections for this data centre to make sure all network connections with other GDSs and airline carriers can be switched over to the disaster recovery centre in the unlikely event of any failure in the primary data centre."

The SITA IP VPN service which SITA is now installing at Beijing International Airport is a managed, business-class network service that provides customers with secure and reliable IP-based Virtual Private Network (IP VPN) solutions. IP VPN allows customers to subscribe to a single, unified connection for their corporate intranet, business-to-business extranet, and public Internet requirements.

Rene Azoulai, SITA Senior Vice-President for Communications Services, said: "As well as replacing legacy network connections with a more reliable IP-based platform, we will introduce several other improvements which will include operational messaging; an airline community network already used by the STAR alliance and others for airline host to host communication."