NEWSLETTER CGT AMADEUS

JUIN 2017 / N27

SPEECH TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF
AMADEUS SHAREHOLDERS
On Thursday 15th June, the annual general assembly of Amadeus shareholders took place in Madrid. We seized this
opportunity to inform and question the Board and Top Management. We delivered a paper copy of our speech to
the chairman J.A. Tazon, L. Maroto and S. Hansen-Peck and draw their attention to the most important topics. The
chairman thanked us for our speech which leaves room for improvement. There was no other question from the
Amadeus shareholders.

Good morning, I speak here on behalf of a shareholder and French Amadeus staff representative of the CGT
union. My name is Stphane Jouteux, I am a software engineer and I have been working for Amadeus for 14 years.
Our company has announced record results for 2016. The net profit has increased by 34% to 701 M. This profit
will be divided into two parts: 412 M of dividends and 288 M of reserves, expanding even more an already large
amount of available cash *.
Despite our exceptional performance, Amadeus is increasingly facing structural and competitive challenges which
question our strategy and our future:
- On the distribution side, British Airways and Iberia recently decided to apply a GDS surcharge on every GDS
booking, following Lufthansa which now applies a GDS surcharge not only on bookings, but also on a key
ancillary service (luggage). Likely, more airlines will follow and push for disintermediation.
- Google is playing an increasing role in our business and several competitors are back or emerging.
- After Japan Airlines in 2017, our main large projects will be behind us, while our strategic revenue
diversification from our Hotel and Airport IT activities are still pending.
In this context, could you precise your vision and clarify how your business plan will provide enough work to
maintain Amadeus headcounts in Europe?
This question is raised because Amadeus used cash to make a few acquisitions in recent years and will likely
continue, while in Europe, capitalized projects have decreased and cost reductions have increased.
In Germany, a recent work agreement defines some options for employees affected by reorganizations such as exit
with severance payment, early retirement, relocation and outplacement, meaning our company has in mind a
reduction of the workforce.
Why dont you use part of your reserves of cash to invest in people, upskill, train and offer new and
motivating opportunities to the Amadeus employees to work on innovative projects to avoid losing their
know-how and experience?
The question may also be raised for employees who have been dismissed following TPF decommissioning,
headcount reduction in some Helpdesk and Training departments or employees whose job has been regionalized in
Airline IT. Or for all the employees who made the continued success of the company for so many years and whose
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job is now delocalized or externalized to third-party companies and who are now asked to find by themselves a new
job in the company because their current position is dismissed.
Nowadays, we often struggle to get human, system and CPU resources for so-called non-critical projects, which
are nonetheless requested by our customers. As a result, mono-GDS customers are considering becoming multi-
GDS clients. How are we going to increase our business and revenues if our customers satisfaction is not
our priority?
The quality of our products and services have recently improved, mainly because our activity and production loads
have decreased. However, we still face a number of fundamental problems:
- How do you guarantee product quality when priority is given to delivery?
- How do you ensure quality when employees design and deliver our products while others fix the incidents,
producing dilution of ownership and responsibility?
- How do you ensure quality and engagement when recruitments are frozen and employees are always asked
to do more with equal or less?
- How do you ensure quality when our development methods are agile while our budget is not?
Could you explain why we face such budget restrictions, making it difficult to answer properly to our
customers requests, while Amadeus has millions of unused cash?
Many employees have been invested for years in big and strategic projects, without getting any specific
recognition. We have recently completed the largest DCS cutover ever with American airline carrier South West.
The cutover was a success. However, Amadeus was unable to provide London staff with fair on-call rates, overtime
payments and decent meal breaks. In Nice, how about the non-ethical and non-transparent way Amadeus managed
the corrections of holiday compensation only for a few staff and under the pressure of court judgments? Nowadays,
many employees lack a clear vision on the future and consider leaving Amadeus to continue their career in other
more innovative and inclusive companies.
Furthermore when they observe that in 2016:
- The remuneration of the ten members of the Executive Committee, including salary, bonus and share-
based payments, has been multiplied by 2.4 from 10.6 M to 25.4 M *.
- 400 Associate Directors and above Top Management members have received 33 M of free shares,
which is ten times more than the total amount of the free shares offered to the 4,000 employees who
subscribed to the Share Match Plan worldwide *.
Whereas less than half Amadeus employees subscribe to the Share Match Plan. Could you explain why:
- Initial investment is required from staff whereas the rule differ for management, who benefits from a special
and free Performance Share Plan.
- Management does not provide a simpler incentive as benefits of the Share Match Plan are challenged by
taxes and complicated fiscal administration.
Why does management not apply a fair and equal scheme for all Amadeus employees, such as the Performance
Share Plan, to better share the success of the company and retain the talents?
Management started a comprehensive communication plan around the 30-years anniversary of the company.
Would you agree to share the success of the company with the 15,380 employees by distributing 30 free shares to
all, or provide an equivalent mean of recognition? This would cost the company only 3 % of the total net profit of
the year 2016 and seem affordable to the company, as long as it would be considered as an investment in the
employees, who should remain, we believe, the main asset of Amadeus.
The travel industry is changing very fast with many innovations, opportunities and emerging competitors. If
Amadeus aims to remain a key and leading player worldwide, management should provide to the employees a
stimulating and rewarding ecosystem with empowerment and career perspectives, where Amadeus success is
equally shared.
I look forward to discussing with you to find the appropriate answers to our questions. Thank you for your attention.
*
: See detailed references on our site.

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