The Hindu Business Line : AI working on new booking system for passengers

New Delhi, Aug. 28 On the first anniversary of the merger of Air India and Indian, National Aviation Company of India Ltd (NACIL), the newly created entity, is focusing on increasing passenger comfort and on ways to cut costs so as to bring the airline back into profitability.

As part of the initiative, a high-level committee of the airline has initiated dialogue with shortlisted service providers for procurement of a Passenger Service System (PSS) the installation of which will help passengers not only make seamless booking across the network of the airline, but also earn and burn miles on any of the 21 airlines that are members of the global airline grouping, Star Alliance.

Air India has been invited to join Star Alliance which already has Lufthansa, Air Canada, British Midlands, Singapore Airlines and United Airlines as its members.

“The installation of the PSS will help global distribution systems and booking offices anywhere in the world to display the full domestic and international network of the airline as against the current system where two different in-house PSS solutions are being used,” sources told Business Line.

It was on August 24 last year that Air India and India Air ceased to be legal entities with the filing of the approval of the application for merger with the Registrar of Companies. The two airlines were dissolved without being wound up and both started functioning under NACIL.

Besides, in order to cut its fuel bill, NACIL is taking several steps including implementing a cruise mach policy, which involves reducing the speed of the aircraft to reduce fuel burn, on the Boeing 747-400 and Boeing 777 fleet and is planning to implement this on the remaining Airbus A-310 and Boeing 737 aircraft in the fleet.

The airline has also decided to rationalise both domestic and international schedules from implementing several measures, including rationalising the uplift of reading materials and meals so as to reduce aircraft weight.

Both these measures alone are expected to result in annual saving of around Rs 1,075 crore.

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