Singapore Telecommunications' (ASX: SGT) Optus signed a $60 million deal today with Virgin Australia (ASX: VAH) to deliver worldwide services to the airline over the next five years.
The telecommunications company will deliver domestic and international services over its managed data network, meeting the scale and security requirements necessary for Virgin's quality assurance standards.
Optus Business Managing Director John Paitaridis pointed to the agreement as further evidence of the success of his company's recent reorganisation, enabling Optus to offer Virgin customers a "one-stop-shop" customer experience. "Today's announcement is testament to our vision of bringing together the best of Optus and SingTel to serve the end-to-end needs of our customers operating in the Asia-Pacifice region and globally," said Paitaridis in a statement.
For Virgin's part, Chief Information Officer Lawrie Turner called the agreement a "significant step in the transformation of Virgin Australia's technology delivery."
With Virgin and Singapore Telecommunications in cahoots for the next five years, investors will need to keep an eye on whether Telstra's (ASX: TLS) Qantas (ASX: QAN) partnership continues to make sense. Qantas signed a seven-year, $750 million contract with Telstra in 2004 to maintain all its desktop and telecom services, and the telecom company has continued to support Qantas since then.
More recently, Telstra helped the Qantas go paperless with iPads for its pilots in 2012, a move mirrored last month by U.S.-based Delta Airlines' equipping its pilots with Microsoft Surface 2 tablets.
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Motley Fool contributor Justin Loiseau has no position in any stocks mentioned in this article. You can follow him on Twitter @TMFJLo.
