IATA bids to eliminate paper tickets

Tuesday, 11 Jun, 2004 0

IATA agm special report: Travel agency associations and GDSs are to be targeted by IATA as key players in helping to eliminate paper airline tickets by the end of 2007, saving the industry an estimated $3 billion a year in costs.

IATA members meeting in Singapore approved a 30-month deadline to go electronic ticketing worldwide – a challenging task, but workable, said the association.

E-ticketing varies between a high of 80% in North America, compared with an average 30% in Europe and even less in Asia. British Airways and bmi are among the UK carriers which have ploughed millions into their e-ticket programmes.

BA’s director of government affairs Andrew Cahn said the airline had set an ambitious target to go ticketless by the end of the year.

IATA’s senior vice-president industry distribution Tom Murphy said the requirements on agents would be eased as a result of the 2007 deadline.

“One of the fundamental requirements for IATA-appointed agents is to have a safe for ticket stock. Neither will be needed,” he said.

“Ticket printers will not be needed and ticket coupons will no longer need to be sent to IATA’s Bank Settlement Plan so the cost savings and efficiency will be huge.”

He added that the BSP clearing system will be totally automated. IATA will embark on a huge training drive to encourage agents to book more e-tickets. And it will call on member airlines to communicate with agents, advising passengers of the benefits of electronic tickets over paper documents.

Paper tickets cost around $10 to print, distribute and process compared with $1 to handle an e-ticket.

IATA issues 300 million tickets a year to travel agents worldwide and 30 million to airlines. Carriers which have made little investment in e-tickets will be given widespread training by IATA to implement the technology.

IATA warns that airlines which are already e-ticket savvy could refuse to interline with those which have no e-ticket capability and yet rely on the big boys for as much as 40% for interline revenue.

Further measures being adopted include bar-coded baggage tags, which can be tracked through radio frequency technology, speeding up bag retrieval procedures to avoid flight delays. KLM is currently testing the technology on selected routes.

Report by Updesh Kapur

Phil Davies

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