Washington, April 4, 1997 (RFE/RL) - The U.S. Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank has agreed to provide a 90 million dollar guarantee to underwrite the financing of a new computerized airline reservation system serving Russia and other former Soviet countries.
The Ex-Im bank agreed yesterday to provide guarantees for the project known as Sirena-3, which will replace the present system serving Aeroflot and other new private carriers in Russia and the other nations. The Ex-Im Bank said the system is a customized version of the SABRE computer reservation system that is used throughout the U.S. and most of the rest of the west.
It will give Aeroflot and the other airlines a system meeting international standards, which manages fares, pricing and scheduling.
The guarantee, a kind of insurance policy, was originally authorized in 1993, but the entire project has only recently been finally put together.