Afilias Successfully Completes Transition of .aero Registry; .aero Registry Receives Service Upgrade to Enhance Domain.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Afilias Limited today announced that it has successfully completed the transition of registry services for .aero, the top-level domain for the aviation industry. This transition, which was completed on behalf of SITA, the sponsoring organization for .aero, brings significant technical improvements to the .aero domain including faster DNS resolution, enhanced security and disaster recovery procedures, an upgraded distribution interface, and industry standardization.

"Afilias is pleased to bring .aero into the Afilias family of customers that it services with state of the art domain registration technology that is fast, reliable and secure," said Hal Lubsen, President and CEO of Afilias. "We are looking forward to a successful partnership with SITA to improve the value, technology, distribution, and prosperity of the .aero domain."

The .aero domain is open for registration by all members of the aviation community including airlines and airports, pilots and crew members, air services providers, cargo and other related entities. Thousands of existing .aero domains were migrated when the transition was completed during a twelve-hour window between 15 and 16 February 2006.

As of result of the migration onto Afilias' technology, the .aero registry will now operate on the world-standard Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) which Afilias pioneered in launching domain name registries. The upgrade to EPP allows increased flexibility, standardization, and access to a broader distribution channel of ICANN-accredited registrars. The .aero registry will also deliver DNS resolution speed increases, reducing the time from registration-to-resolution of a domain name to under 5 minutes.

"SITA is pleased to be able to deliver these enhancements, improving the technology, service, and availability of .aero domains," said Marie Zitkova, Head of .aero. "By working with Afilias, SITA believes that the .aero domain can fulfill its potential by leveraging Internet technology to connect the entire aviation community and facilitate communication between people and entities which provide efficient, safe and secure transport of people and cargo by air."

Background

On 11 January 2006, SITA announced the selection of Afilias as the new Registry Operator for the .aero Domain. A thorough application process was followed by SITA in which a Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued and Afilias proved to be the registry operator best suited to provide registry services to the .aero TLD. Afilias now adds .aero to its growing list of registry customers which already include: .INFO, .ORG, .AG (Antigua and Barbuda), .GI (Gibraltar), .HN (Honduras), .IN (India), .LA (Laos), .SC (the Seychelles), .VC (St. Vincent and the Grenadines), and .MOBI. Afilias' technology now powers more than 7 million domains worldwide.

About .aero

.aero is the world's first industry-based top level Internet domain (TLD), introduced in March 2002 as an initiative run exclusively by and for the aviation community. As a sponsored domain, .aero can define and implement its own policies designed to safeguard the integrity of the domain, something that cannot be achieved in the original public domain structure (.COM, .NET etc...).

SITA acts as the sponsor of the .aero top level domain under a sponsorship agreement with Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). SITA's obligation is to manage and develop the TLD on behalf and in the interest of the aviation community on a not-for-profit basis.

About SITA

SITA SC is the only global Communication Services Integrator dedicated to the travel and transportation industry (TTI), providing consultancy in the design, deployment and management of complex communications solutions and reliably implementing, integrating and managing communication services. SITA SC is a commercially-managed not-for-profit organization, set up and wholly-owned by the air transport community. Further information can be found at www.sita.aero.

About Afilias

Afilias Limited, a leading global provider of domain name registry services, maintains international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, sales offices in London, England, sales and operational facilities in Toronto, Canada, administrative offices in the U.S. near Philadelphia, PA, and operational offices in New Delhi, India. Afilias provides a full range of registry services leveraging proven technology that is fast, reliable and secure. Afilias provides registry services support to the .ORG gTLD (under contract to Public Interest Registry), the .INFO gTLD and several country code and sponsored TLDs. For more information please visit www.afilias.info