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Nina Varghese

According to an IATA spokesperson, a paper ticket costs approximately $9 to process, while an e-ticket costs about $1. Airlines and travel agents will benefit from simplified ticket issuance and processing, streamlined revenue accounting procedures, easier handling of itinerary changes and better use of Internet and telecommunication capabilities for new add-on services.

Chennai , Nov. 11

E-TICKETS are well on their way to making air travel easier or a nightmare, depending on how you see them.

The travel market in India is evolving and while a number of people say that travelling with an e-ticket is easier, there is an equal number of passengers who find comfort in paper tickets.

But paper tickets are on their way out and travel agents across the country are in the process of educating their clients on the merits of e-tickets.

Mr N.R. Kumaraswamy, Chairman (Southern Region), Travel Agents Association of India, said that most passengers are aware of e-tickets on international sectors and are falling in line, as sometimes they would have to pay more for paper tickets.

Mr Ananth Narasimhan, Managing Director of Ghumo.com, a travel portal, said that online booking accounts for a small percentage (less than five per cent) of all the bookings done in India.

E-ticketing has seen tremendous growth in the last two years primarily due to the low-cost carriers.

All the low-cost carriers have adopted 100 per cent e-ticketing. Jet Airways and Indian Airlines have started e-ticketing while Air Sahara is yet to adopt it.

Mr Kumaraswamy said that e-tickets would also make work easy for travel agents. With regular clients, travel agents have the facility of keeping `signature on file' which helps the agent use the corporate credit card and bill the client immediately.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has set a deadline of 100 per cent e-tickets by airlines by the end of 2007, but the penetration of e-tickets in India by the end of September is just 6.4 per cent.

An IATA statement quoting the Director-General and CEO, Mr Giovanni Bisignani, said: "E-ticketing is the most pressing (need) because it has a deadline of the end of 2007. At that time, we will stop printing the 340 million paper tickets that are used today. Our target is 40 per cent global e-ticketing penetration by the end of 2005. Globally we are past 33 per cent, Asia Pacific is near that at 30 per cent. It is extremely disappointing that a country as advanced in software development as India can be so far behind. India must be a leader in this region, not the last to get on board."

E-ticketing will ensure that the savings for the airlines will be substantial.

According to an IATA spokesperson, a paper ticket costs approximately $9 to process, while an e-ticket costs about $1.

Airlines and travel agents will benefit from simplified ticket issuance and processing, streamlined revenue accounting procedures, easier handling of itinerary changes and better use of Internet and telecommunication capabilities for new add-on services, the spokesperson said.

Some international airlines have introduced e-tickets. Cathay Pacific introduced e-ticketing services for its passengers over three years ago.

Mr Rupert Bray, Country Manager, Cathay Pacific, said that all ports in the Cathay Pacific network have been e-ticket enabled since 2003.

Mr N. Prabaharan, Regional Manager for Sri Lanka and Indian Sub-continent, SriLankan Airlines, said that passengers can book directly on the Web or book the ticket at the airline's office.

Even if you lose or forget the PNR (passenger name record) number, the airline can retrieve your travel details with valid photo identification such as passport or driving licence, he added.

Some airlines have started penalising passengers for not changing over to e-tickets.

For instance, from November 1, Air France will charge 20 euros for every paper ticket issued. This charge is applied for all classes of travel.

Mr Prabaharan said that there are some challenges on interlining, that is, when a passenger uses more than one airline to reach the destination.

This is because not all airlines have e-ticket capabilities.

The IATA spokesperson said that as of June 2005, of the 366 carriers polled, 73 per cent either had e-ticket plans or had issued e-tickets.

Of this number, 38 per cent had plans but no product, 21 per cent have e-ticket capability but no interline product, while 14 per cent had interline e-ticketing capability.

However, the spokesperson said, IATA is leading this industry project to ensure that all airlines - IATA members and those participating in multilateral interline traffic agreements - are capable of issuing electronic tickets for interline use.

According to a release, the IATA programme has five core projects aimed at achieving $6.5 billion in savings.

These are: 100 per cent e-ticketing by the end of 2007, taking paper out of freight processing, radio frequency identification for baggage management, bar coded boarding passes, and common use of self service kiosks for check-in.

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