Ryanair’s New Booking Engine – Now What?

The media was loud about Ryanair’s new booking engine to be launched this Monday. I even read it in the news that they managed to migrate and the turned their site back on even before deadline.

I tried to test it yesterday evening, but I ran into errors all the time. Then I gave it up and tried it again this morning.

I was surprised to find out that nothing has changed. I tried to book a flight between Budapest and Glasgow for 2 persons. First I received a price of HUF 7990 for the outbound flight and the same price for the return flight. Then I selected them and on the next page I found 14 990 for both ways because of the 2 persons. Besides that on both ways they showed me taxes and fees and in the end the total cost was HUF 54 160 (1 Eur = 260 HUF). So nothing is true about showing gross prices. (See screenshot for details)

I am wondering if they failed the upgrade and this is still the old version of their online booking engine or if this is the new engine and the managed to slap the whole worldwide media on the face.

There is only one more thing to mention about the whole story. I tried to find a media contact to them. It is not available on their website or anywhere else. Although I am a kind of a fan of Mr O’Leary, I don’t get this. it is absolutely not professional.

By Szafi

Flight Review: AirTran Airways

 

Route: Atlanta, GA – Dayton, OH – Atlanta, GA
Operating Airlines: AirTran Airways
Travel Date: 30NOV2007 and 02DEC2007

Ticket Purchase

I have bought the ticket through www.airtran.com. The website is very simple, and thus very easy to use, very understandable, clear. It shows you all available fares in a very simple table with all flight details being displayed in small pop-up dialog windows. It is clear which flight is nonstop, and which ones involve a transfer. What is a nice feature that I have not seen before at other airlines’ sites, is that you can have a printer friendly version of the flight search results. So you can print your options and discuss it with somebody or attach it to a business trip plan, etc. Very handy, as mostly you end up with complicated, colorful search results which you can scroll for minutes and may be printed on four pages which then you have to somehow compile to see the actual information. This is a nice added value feature! After selecting your flights you get an overview, that includes the most important fare rules, terms and conditions, check-in information, and the option to add your a+ rewards number (frequent flier program of AirTran) as well to book a trip protection insurance. You also have the option to secure your seat when booking, which is at extra cost, but at an acceptable level I think. I chose 17F for both of my flights for an extra USD 5 for each flight, but could have chosen emergency exit seats with extra leg room for USD 20/flight. You can of course pay by credit card, but you can also use your PayPal account, with BillMeLater or with CheckFree account. In the last step you confirm your payment details and recieve a confirmation mail afterwards.

Offsetting Carbon Emissions 

There is no option to offset your carbon emissions on this website.

Check-In

I wasn’t worried about check-in at all, as I had pre-selected my seat, I knew I will have a window seat, still I received a mail 24 hours before the first flight that check-in is now available. I went ahead and checked in, where I could select another seat. (Actually on the way back I did so, as 17F didn’t have enough legroom due to some wiring at the bottom of the previous seat.) Online check-in at the website is also straight forward, and fast. You have other choices to check-in, such as the Bye-Pass Check-in kiosks at the airport, and you can also drop your luggage off at the sidewalk check-in areas at the Atlanta Airport so you don’t even have to carry your luggage in the terminal building, they take it away from your right where the taxi can drop you off.

1. ATLANTA, GA - DAYTON, OH (FL 702)

Aircraft: Boeing 717-200 (N923AT), relatively new aircraft operated by AirTran Airways – with special sticker: 100th Boeing Delivery
Class: Economy
Punctuality: Flight took off 10 minutes late, arrived at about the right time.
Boarding: Was very efficient, due to the boarding zones -printed on the boarding card- called one by one.
Seats: Comfortable, but not wide enough seats, with small legroom (especially as the bottom of the previous seat had extra wiring)
Flight Attendants: There were 3 of them, they were average looking, all of them seemed friendly.
Meals: Everybody is asked if they want snacks (small pack of pretzels) and a glass of soft drink (Coca-Cola products). For USD 5 you can also get beer, wine, shots or mini-cocktails. In business class these are included in the ticket prize for economy, you may pay onboard, or while checking in on the ByePass Kiosks before your flight, which would give you vouchers.
Entertainment: Free Satellite XM radio with optional headsets (but you can use your own, too) and on-board magazine: Go. Huge SkyMall catalog

2. DAYTON, OH – ATLANTA, GA (FL 414)

Aircraft: Boeing 717-200 (N-963AT), aircraft operated by AirTran Airways
Class: Economy
Punctuality: Flight took off exactly on time, arrived 10 minutes late.
Boarding: Dayton airport was deserted on this Sunday night, no lines to que, just walk-through to the gate. Same zoned boarding used as in Atlanta, due to the low number of people plane was boarded very quickly.
Seats: As my seat was on the left side of the plane where you only have two seats, it felt a little bit more comfortable. I had a bigger guy sitting next to me, but as soon as doors were closed, he moved elsewhere, so we were both more comfortable.
Flight Attendants: There were 3 of them, average.
Meals: Same small pack of pretzels, same soft drinks as on the outbound flight.
Entertainment: Free XM satellite radio at every seat.

Overall Experience

AirTran just does what air travel is basically about: Takes you from point A to point B. Considered as a low-cost, it still offers free drinks on board which is nice, and I also liked the XM satellite radio. Other than that it does nothing more, nothing less. It’s good value for your money with efficient procedures (online booking, online check-in, efficient boarding). I paid USD 248 for my return ticket, and if I will ever visit my American families in Ohio from Atlanta again, I would take this flight once more.

by balint01

Flight Review: British Airways

We have been considering writing flight reviews for some time, and now finally here is the first one.

Route: BUDAPEST-London/Gatwick-ATLANTA
Operating Airlines: oneworld: British Airways and Malev Hungarian Airlines
Travel Date: 06NOV2007

Ticket Purchase

I have bought the ticket through www.ba.com, which was a very nice experience. The website provides you with lowest price options on and around the days you have searched for showing the options in an easy-to-understand, coloured format. After selecting (confirming) your travel dates, it gives you a detailed list of all the available flight combinations, also colored so that you can easily recognize the cheapest option. What I really liked about the flight descriptions, that it explicitly tells you operational information after or between the concerned flights. For example it would tell you “Warning – your connection will involve travel between airports by coach or bus, the cost of which is not included in your fare.” And this text would be displayed between those two flights, where one arrives at Heathrow, while the other leaves from Gatwick. Really easy to understand, and very visual. After selecting your flights and providing passenger details you can pay for your trip with your credit card and upon successful payment, you receive a confirmation email immediately (as expected). The site also takes you immediately to the “Manage My Booking” section, that provides very usefull information and allows you to manage your booking. For example you can save time at the airport by filling out the APIS data (required for entry to the USA) online, you can also add frequent flier number if you forgot to add it at the time of the booking, and can change or upgrade your flights right from here, but can check the online entertainment options, including the movies you will be offered, too.

Offsetting Carbon Emissions 

You can also follow a link from the “Manage My Booking” page to offset your carbon-dioxide emissions with Climate Care (http://www.climatecare.org/britishairways/calculators/) using a pollution calculator. For this particular return flight my emmission is 1,86 t of CO2, which costed me EUR 20,75 to offset. Climate Care has also sent me a British Airways co-branded Certificate to certify that I have offset the CO2 generated by my return flight.
(Being curious I have also checked the Lufthansa website partnered with myclimate.org, launched a few months ago, and to my surprise for the same route it calculated: 1,705 t of CO2, and suggested a compensation of EUR 34. Where the difference comes from, I don’t know…)

Check-In

To be in control of my seats, I chose to check-in online. It opens 24 hours before the actual flight (each flight opens individually). Unfortunately check-in for the BUD-LGW segment was not available on the BA website, as it is operated by Malev Hungarian Airlines. But for the British Airways flight, I could check-in flawlessly, where I got a pre-assigned seat, which I could change while using a seat-map of the actual aircraft that I was going to fly. The process is very straight forward, and easy to understand I think. After the successful transaction I printed my boarding pass on a normal A4 size paper, that included a bar code for later identification at the airport. The website also gave me check-in summary after completing it. Unlike some other airlines, BA did not replace this home-printed paper with a magnetic stripe “traditional” boarding pass at the airport, this was the only boarding paper I used to get on my flight.

Due to the above mentioned situation I also used the check-in desks at Budapest, where they checked me in quickly for the Budapest-London segment, but they had no information of my other already self-checked-in segment. They could not confirm if I actually have 35A as my seat or not, but she said she can not do anything with my second flight (the systems blocks her) and suggested that I look for a BA transfer desk at Gatwick. She could check-in my luggage all the way, though. Upon arrival to Gatwick I contacted BA Ticket desk in the transit area, and the lady there was also very nice, told me that indeed I have 35A, but even though my luggage was checked-in all the way in Budapest already, she does not see it in the system. So I gave her my bag-tag, which then she recorded in their system.

1. BUDAPEST – LONDON GATWICK (BA 4450 operated by Malev: MA 612)

Aircraft: Boeing 737-700NG (HA-LOL), new, clean, comfortable aircraft operated by Malev Hungarian Airlines
Class: Economy
Punctuality: Flight took off 10 minutes late, arrived exactly on time.
Boarding: After a long-long queue at the security (airport’s responsibility) I had to rush to the gate, otherwise it was OK
Seats: Full leather seats in both classes, with average legroom
Flight Attendants: There were 4 of them, 3 young girls and 1 older purser. Two of the girls were very good looking, all of them were very friendly.
Meals: We got hot breakfast of scrambled eggs, beans and a wurst as well as freshly warmed/heated buns. Also got orange juice and tea, could have gotten a wide variety of soft drinks, or wine or beer.
Entertainment: There are LCD screens above the seats per every three-four rows in the aircraft, which play Malev and Hungary PR material throughout the whole flight.

2. LONDON GATWICK – ATLANTA (BA 2227)

Aircraft: Boeing 777-200 (G-VIIF), not so new, at some places worn-down aircraft operated by British Airways
Class: Economy
Punctuality: Flight took off 10 minutes late, arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule.
Boarding: The security at Gatwick was very long, I was happy I had a three hour layover so I didn’t have to run, and I could relax while standing in the line. It was confusing that when finally they put up on the screens that we need to go to gate 55, while walking there I caught the last few words of an announcement saying that passenger flying to Atlanta should proceed to gate 59. It doesn’t sound that bad, but the gates are on two different sides of Gatwick, so it would have caused a running excercise if the announcement proves true. As I wasn’t sure if it was about my flight (there was another flight to Atlanta about an hour after mine) I went to the gate which was on the screens – it was a good decision as that was our gate. After the gate-boarding pass check-in there were seats available for only about half of the passengers, so either be there early or arrive late! Other than that, boarding went smoothly.
Seats: Full leather seats with proper legroom, as comfortable as a regular economy seat can get. Tip: if legroom is important for you don’t get a window seat, as the entertainment cables go on the window seat’s chairleg, which reduces free legroom. It doesn’t really leave you the option to put a laptop bag under the seat in front of you for example.
Flight Attendants: They really did their job of serving meals and overlooking the passengers for security. That’s all they did. No special smile or service, dry English manner.

 

Meals: Not so long after take-off we received a small pack of snacks with drinks and later on the main meal. The choice was chicken or pasta, I took the chicken with assorted vegetables (potatoes, broccoli and mashed carrots). The taste was good, just like that of the standard salad (with fish) and the blackberry pie. The Twix chocolate bar tasted as everywhere around the world. The bun was not fresh and not warmed, not tasty at all. The white wine was OK, but it’s probably not award winning, either. Shortly before landing we got another “meal” which was a small pre-packed sandwhich with a small carrot-cake with raisins and a pack of dried fruits. Drinks were served once again. During the flight if somebody wanted to get snacks or extra drinks, the kitchen in the back of the plane was always “open”.

  

Entertainment: Every passenger in economy has their own LCD screen and built-in remote control in the armrest. My armrest was really worn-down and actually broken. The dirty looking plastic cover was living it’s own life, as you can see on the pictures above. It should be dangling around like this, it was annoying. Just like the fact that I tried 2 headphones where each had only one side working, then I put on my own headphones which just worked properly. As it is a Skype enabled one, the flight attendants spotted it and brought a third one to try, which finally worked on both sides! It may only be me, but I always get a half- or non-working headphone set on my long-haul flights at first… On the other hand, the radio stations were OK, and the movies, too. The movies start at un-announced times, all movies starting at the same time. I watched three of them: Die Hard 4, Ocean’s Thirteen and Knocked Up.
Amenities: Each economy passenger received a bag of socks, and toothbrush-toothpaste.

Overall Experience

Despite the minor glitches on the BA flight with the entertainment (armrest and headphones) I would take this flight again, I had a good time onboard both oneworld flights. A big advantage was the convenient schedule (leaving Budapest at 7:10 and arriving in Atlanta at 16:25) and the pricetag: this return flight costed USD 1072, with the purchase taking place exactly one week before the departure (so relatively late).

by balint01

Amadeus Turns 20

  

The largest European based GDS (Global Distribution System), Amadeus has just turned 20 years old a week ago, as it was officially established 21OCT1987 by four European Airlines: Iberia, Air France, Lufthansa and SAS. The four airlines wished to create a European GDS by merging their own computer reservation systems. The basis of the new GDS was System One, an existing US reservation system.

Within a year they have opened their headquarters in Madrid, Spain, their development center in Nice, France, and have started construction on the new Data Center, in Erding, Germany. In 1989 they have launched AmadeusPro to allow travel agents to book flights through neutral screens, while already 11 airlines were Amadeus users. One year later the Erding Data Center opened, which costed $200 million altogether, and was capable of handling 150 million transactions in the first year. 1991 saw 45.000 terminals being connected to Amadeus, while in 1992 the new Amadeus GDS was launched with the first PNR being booked for Mr. Wolfgang Amadeus. In the first year 70 million bookings were created. 1993 saw more than 10 million bookings each month, as well as 60% of European Travel Agencies were connected to 1A (1A is the two letter IATA code of Amadeus GDS). In 1994 Austrian Airlines joined the distribution system as the 100th airline selling through Amadeus. One year later Amadeus fully acquired System One from Continental Airlines, thus becoming the largest GDS in terms of travel agency locations. In 1996 www.amadeus.net was launched, while bookings topped 309 million. Only about 50% of old System One users accepted the forced migration to Amadeus. In 1997 Amadeus celebrated its 10 year anniversary, while serving 32% of the travel agency market worldwide, and the first Amadeus powered travel website was also launched by Icelandair.

In 1998, the first year of their second decade, they launched the SAP Travel Management tool, which is fully integrated with SAP’s finance and HR modules, and their data center handled one million transactions in a single day for the first time. By 1999, around 80 airlines and 3000 travel agencies rely on 1A e-commerce solutions, and this is the year, when 1A launches the world’s first neutral Electronic Ticketing solution: the Amadeus E-Ticket Server (ETS). In 2000 and 2001 Amadeus lays down the plans for the coming years, by starting development on Vista (a browser based version of their reservation system), on new Inventory and Departure Control Systems (for British Airways and Qantas as the first customers), as well as announcing the new Altéa Customer Management Solution. In 2003 the annual number of bookings passes the 400 million mark, while new airlines launch their websites based on 1A, among them bmi and Qantas. In 2005 Amadeus shifts its “identity” to become “Your Technology Partner”, and repositions itself as a leading Airline IT service provider. To support this change, they win a major contract to support the Star Alliance with a new Common IT Platform for all member airlines. Last year Amadeus handled 499 million bookings, and by 2007 they provide 192 airlines with their e-Ticketing. This year they have launched MoneyDirect as a Joint Venture with Sabre.

As the leading Airline IT provider, they provide the capacity for common shared access to flight reservations and frequent flyer information to nearly 150 airlines as Amadeus Altéa Reservation airlines (formerly known as System User). Current Amadeus Altéa Reservation customers include:

• 6 of the 11 oneworld airlines (55%)
• 13 of the 21 Star Alliance airlines (61%)
• 3 of the 10 SkyTeam airlines (30%)

And with the Common IT Platform for Star, this number will raise in the future. As we can see, in the first 18 years Amadeus focused on the travel agencies (and seems like they have won on that front being the leader on the market), and now they start to focus on Airlines. If they are as successful on this market as with the travel agencies, they may be the largest player in this field as well, within the next few years. It looks like they have started down the right path to do that.

http://www.amadeus.com/2020/

On the dedicated anniversary website you can find some more items besides the history of Amadeus, such as future plans, and thank you notes. They also added a fun “Personal Note for you” feature, with a personalized message, don’t miss that one, either!

We would also wish Amadeus a Happy 20th Birthday on behalf of AirlineWorld Blog!

by balint01

SITA Plans To Develop New CRS

SITA announced the development of a new Reservation System. You can read the full story on ATW Online. I must admit I am not a SITA fan myself. After an almost failed project in 2003 and a completely failed project in 2006 with them and after seeing their “Horizon” project slowly sinking into the ocean. By the way in the airline industry it is fancy to give applications names related to aviation. But Horizon is not a smart name as the closer you try to get to it, the further it moves from you.
I was honestly surprised by this announcement. After failing the Horizon project together with Unisys, Lufthansa Systems bought that half ready, unusable product (I worked with it; there were completely insane features in it and very important functions missing). Not long ago LH Systems announced they stopped developing it – which I think was a very wise decision. This is the relationship between SITA and Lufthansa Systems that appear in the article.

When I take a look at this announcement, I have a guess about what is going on at SITA. Ian Ryder’s name appears in the article. I first met him during our first e-commerce project together with SITA. At that time he was the head of SITA’s newly bought, Godalming based e-commerce department. SITA bought that company in late 2002 or early 2003. They had a product called I-Travel Direct. It was first implemented for Air New Zealand on a different GDS and Malev was the next client on SITA Gabriel. Later Malev migrated to Amadeus and we developed our own e-commerce solution based on Amadeus. But it was clear that SITA’s solution was at least competitive, although for us it was not flexible enough. At that time they also developed a new pricing system there also mentioned in the article.

So my guess is that this e-commerce and e-pricing solution will be the basis for this new development. And if this is the case, I have to say it is a good idea and this way they are right; even low costs will be able to take advantage of it. Such a development is a mega project though with many departments involved and if I just take a look at that department responsible for SITA’s DCS, they will stumble into lack of knowledge and lack of professionals. They can only succeed with it if they will hire some good project managers (better than the ones I met before – except Kevin Bull) who can split up this huge project into well definable pieces and monitor developments closely. These project managers will also need support and attention from the highest level management.

I will write an email to SITA and ask for their comments.

By Szafi 

Amadeus And Sabre Launch Moneydirect

As Airlineworld has reported earlier, Amadeus and Sabre plan a joint venture to provide secure payment clearing and reconciliation service for non-air travel sales. Yesterday the two GDS (Global Distribution System) providers revealed some details about this new entity. In our previous article we have mentioned that the new joint venture required an antitrust approval from the European Commission, which they have received on 12SEP2007. The new solution called Moneydirect is based on an Amadeus product launched in Australia and New Zealand in 1998 already. It will focus on hotels, cruise lines, tour operators, car rental companies, ferries, railways, and travel intermediaries such as travel agencies and wholesalers.

James Filsinger, chief executive officer and general manager of Moneydirect, said operations, which are currently hosted in Australia, will move to Ireland, with subsidiary offices in Australia and the U.S. He said travel agencies can use Moneydirect to pass payments onto suppliers minus their commissions. They also can use it to schedule several payments to cruise and tour companies in installments.

 

Moneydirect also will address currency issues, he said. For example, a U.S. travel agent who books a hotel in Australia might get a $10 check issued in Australian dollars 90 days later. Moneydirect will enable the hotel to transfer the amount immediately directly into the agency’s bank account. “Payment can go in either direction,” Filsinger said. “If a hotel company manages hotel commissions directly, it can use Moneydirect to pay agencies.”

He said the platform is flexible enough to handle transactions in which the agent has a net rate and can retain the markup when the customer’s credit card is charged the full price for a travel component. Any size agency, hotel or other travel company can use the product, he said. “Even a small company that provides scuba tours can use it, so it may open the door to some new content that wasn’t already available before,” he said.

Filsinger said the fee structure has not yet been finalized but will be transaction-based. “We have a fee model that ranges from 10 to 20 cents, depending on the type of transaction,” he said. Moneydirect will be GDS-independent, he said. The joint venture is looking at ways in which it can communicate with agencies’ back-office systems in an efficient manner.

In granted approval to the joint venture, the EC said it concluded that “the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area or any substantial part of it. . .. There would be no horizontal or vertical overlaps between the activities of Moneydirect and its parent companies.”

The EC added that “this business is not closely related to the parties’ GDS business” and Amadeus and Sabre “have put in place structures to limit the information flows between Moneydirect and its parent companies.”

So Amadeus and Sabre has started on the road to provide an IATA BSP type of solution for travel agencies using their systems. The IATA BSP provides the same service of a general clearing house, but only in relation to air travel – between IATA member airlines and IATA member travel agencies selling those airlines’ tickets. Now the agencies (using Amadeus and Sabre reservation systems) will be able to take usage of similar services in relation with the other travel related content which they offer to their customers – their life will indeed be made much easier. Looking forward what will be the next cooperation between Amadeus and Sabre!

by balint01 (based on ATW News)

Airbus A380 Tickets Sold For USD 1.25 Million

As Airlineworld has reported earlier, Singapore Airlines had sold the tickets for the first ever commercial flight of the new Airbus A380 on eBay through an auction, and will donate all the revenue gained from these sales for charity. The auction took place in the two weeks between 27AUG2007 and 10SEP2007, for the flights which will take-off from Singapore to Sydney on 25OCT2007 and will head back to Singapore the following day.

The starting prices at the auction were USD 3.80 for economy, USD 38.00 for business and USD 380.00 for first class seats. According to the Singapore Airlines website the record was achieved for the sale of the first Singapore Airlines Suites package on the Singapore-Sydney flight, which sold for USD 100,380 (S$153,000), which means a 265 time increase of the starting price!  The bargain of the auction was a single Economy seat from Sydney to Singapore, which sold for USD 560 (S$853), that equals 150 times the starting price. It’s also interesting that in case of the starting prices you could buy 100 economy seats for the price of a first class suite, while the difference between the most expensive and the cheapest tickets during the auction has grown to 179,25 fold! So in theory buying only bargain economy seats for the price of the record first class price would have enabled the proud owner to purchase enough tickets to fill up an average transatlantic Boeing 767-200ER for example, or a larger short-haul plane, such as an Airbus A321 or a Boeing 737-800.

One Singaporean purchased three Singapore Airlines Suites, two Business Class seats and an Economy Class seat on the Singapore-Sydney sector, paying USD 56,000 (S$85,280) for the six seats total. Australians made up the largest nationality of successful bidders (15%), followed by Singaporeans (11%), Britons (6%), Americans (4%) and Germans (3%).  The other 60% come from all over the world. Successful bidders ranged in age, from a San Francisco man who will turn 22 on the day of the flight (what a perfect birthday gift!!), to a 76 year old from Vancouver, Canada.

The auction was one of the largest charity auctions, and among the most complex, ever held on eBay, and the largest it has operated across the Asia-Pacific.  Some 366 auction items have been listed over the 2 weeks of the auction, including seats in all three classes, in singles, pairs and blocks.

The eBay pages hosting details of the Singapore Airlines A380 First Flight Charity Auction recorded over 26 million hits during the auction, with Australia, Germany, the US then Canada making up the most visitors to the sites.  Data suggests internet users from over 160 countries visited the auction pages at some point during the auction.

There were a total of over 10.000 valid bids received, and overall S$1.9 million (USD 1.25 million or EUR 0.9 million) raised for the two flights (Singapore-Sydney and Sydney-Singapore). All the proceeds raised from the auction will be split three ways, between Singapore and Sydney charities, and a global humanitarian organisation (again a very elegant way of splitting up such a huge amount of charity money):

• One third to Singapore’s Community Chest
• One third between the Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick, and The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, both in Sydney
• One third to Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders.

Cheques will be presented to the beneficiary organisations in conjunction with the First Flight on 25 and 26 October, according to Singapore Airlines.

After the charity and the celebrations of the first flights, Singapore Airlines will begin scheduled services on the A380 between Singapore and Sydney on 28OCT2007, just two days after the historical flights, and only 13 days after taking delivery of the largest airliner. The daily return flight will be in place of an existing flight, currently operated using a Boeing 747 jumbojet.

We here at airlineworld think this was a beautiful and elegant way of selling tickets for the first ever commercial flight of the Airbus A380, and to use such an occasion to benefit charity organizations. We are also overwhelmed by the success and the amount of money raised!

by balint01

100% E-Ticketing: IATA Places Last Order For Paper Tickets

On 27AUG2007, IATA has placed its last order for paper ticket stocks to be used by its associated travel agencies before the 31MAY2008 deadline for 100% Electronic Ticketing. This means that IATA will only support Electronic Tickets starting 01JUN2008, paper tickets will become collectors’ items!

The final order was for approximately 16.5 million paper tickets to be supplied by seven specialised printers which are to be distributed among and used by some 60.000 accredited travel agencies in 162 markets worldwide. IATA’s settlement systems issue over 400 million ticket annually. The elimination of paper tickets would not only cut airlines’ costs by USD$9 for every traveller (a total of USD$ 3 billion for the whole industry) but would also mean that air travel – criticized by environmentalists for its part in global warming – would save 50,000 mature trees a year, according to Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Non-IATA airlines, mainly low-cost carriers such as Ireland’s Ryanair and Britain’s easyJet, already have a paper-free ticket system where travelers are registered in computers and present only an identity document at check-in. Now with the pressure from IATA, the traditional carriers are moving in this direction as well.

An interesting statement from the airline body says that China, one of the fastest-growing markets for air travel and host to next year’s Olympic Games, is heading to be the first country in the world to operate an entirely paper-free ticketing system by the end of this year. Just like in many other fields, China has done a very impressive progress in this matter as well, because 3 years ago, when the 100% ET program of IATA was launched, there were no E-tickets issued in the most populated country in the world and now they are headed to be the first country to eliminate paper tickets, before the original deadline!

by balint01

100% E-Ticketing = 96.5% E-Ticketing!

As AirlineWorld had reported earlier, IATA has extended the deadline for 100% Electronic Ticketing. Not so long ago IATA has also admitted (which they probably knew all along the road) that pure 100% Electronic Ticketing (ET) will never be reachable for the whole market. Here is a quote from IATA (Bryan Wilson, ET Project Director in an ATW Webinar):

“We now understand the real target is 96.5%” *

* for IATA BSP’s (central clearing house solution for travel agents and airlines in most of the major IATA markets around the globe)

96.5% non-paper ticketing

Now the question is this: Where is that remaining 3.5% and how come it will remain Paper Ticketing?

First of all, about 20% of interline journeys (itineraries that involve more than one airline) will remain paper ticket based due to the interline ET agreement not being in place between the two involved airlines (this accounts for 2.4% of the total), about 1% of tickets will be paper tickets as per the choice of the travel agents, and about 0.1% will be accounted for airlines who choose not to introduce electronic ticketing at all. IATA says, this “remaining 3.5% will be satisfied by other means.” This “other means” would actually mean other, non-ET solutions, such as an agent issuing a paper MPD (Multi-Purpose Document), which then later is turned into a ticket by the airline, or some of the airlines deploying their own paper ticket stocks at agencies, who then issue paper tickets for that particular airline. (At the moment IATA centrally deploys the airline independant paper ticket stocks to their registered travel agencies worldwide, so this responsibility would be moved from IATA to the airline that chose not to move to 100% ET, at their own expenses.)

96.5% of airlines involved 

IATA has classified each member airline to a group (that is differentiated by a color) based on their plans/state of ET readiness. Out of 348 IATA member airlines that used the IATA BSP in May 2007:

• Platinum (100% ET): 9 airlines
• Green (own ET and interline ET enabled): 156 airlines
• Yellow (own ET in BSP only – at the moment): 62 airlines
• Orange (having a plan for ET, including 1st date of ET in BSP): 85 airlines
• Red (no plan for ET yet): 0 airlines (so all members have expressed their plans by MAY07)
• Purple (does not plan to implement ET at all): 33 airlines
• Brown (will use another airline code to issue tickets): 3 airlines

This means 3 airlines will be “hidden” behind another carrier using the same airline code, so they will practically introduce ET, and will have some backoffice accounting work to do in-house. 33 airlines however (almost 10% of all member airlines!!) plan not to roll-out Electronic Ticketing at all! This is quite a surprising number at first glance, but in reality, these are mostly very small, charter airlines who do not sell their tickets via travel agencies and reservation systems, so they can have their own alternative ways to replace electronic tickets and they actually only account for about 0.1% of the total sales. But 321 airlines (89% of the member airlines) will fulfill the BSP (travel agency) enabled Electronic Ticketing requirement by the prolonged deadline of 31MAY2008!! This is a great achievement!

96.5% of all tickets sold at travel agencies

On the other hand, if we look at ticket volumes the situation slightly changes. As you would guess, if a large airline becomes ET enabled, and especially interline ET enabled (is able to sell ET’s that include another airline) with more and more partner airlines, the ticket volume percentage would jump much more! So by MAY2007 the global penetration of ET’s within the IATA BSP’s (travel agency sales) was already at 80.7%! IATA projects this number to grow to 92% by the end of the year. The difference from there to reach the above mentioned 96.5% means 18 million tickets!! Quite a lot if you try to imagine this many paper tickets physically – it would make a really huge pile of paper, even though these 18 million paper tickets only account for 4.5% of worldwide airline ticket sales! By thinking about this, it’s much easier to imagine that by stopping paper ticket issuance totally and moving to 100% ET really can save the worldwide airline industry about 3 billion USD annually. (Not to mention all the environmental impacts…)

96.5% in Interline Volumes

Based on the above numbers, IATA has decided to extend the deadline for the issuance of the last paper tickets at an IATA registered travel agency, due to the fact that it is believed some airlines would not be able to make it by the end of 2007 (the original deadline). Also the service providers are overloaded with interline ET connection requests, which they seem not to be able to handle before the year end. IATA foresees that by the end of 2007, some 2100 interline Agreements will be introduced, which would cover about 75% of all interline connections. In terms of ticket volumes, this means a higher percentage. To get to the desired level of 80% (which would mean 2300 agreements), many service providers and airlines would have to be involved at an increased pace, and the difference would actually be 2.3 million tickets!

by balint01

American Airlines Sues Google Over Selling Keyword to Others

American Airlines took Google to court over the sales of the search term American Airlines to other companies. Google’s search mechanism works like that. When you start a search, you will get a result page with 3 different areas. One is the main, organic search result, and above the results and on the right side of the results you can find sponsored links. Sponsored link means a company or a private person pays for a certain keyword and if somebody searches for that keyword, their links will appear in these special places. See pictures below:

Google search result without sponsored links

Google search results with sponsored links

American Airlines fear that such triggers for other copanies’ advertisments mislead customers and thus threaten the American Airlines trademark and the goodwill of the company.

This is not the first time Google was sued for their policy of selling keywords. However most of the legal procedures ended up either with an advantageous decision for Google or parties agreed during the procedure.

I personally do not believe this procedure will end up in a different way. Especially not in the US, where law is so much based on precedents. But we will see it later.

By Szafi