The charms of 'e'

AVIATION: e-tickets will soon edge out the paper tickets

The regular airline ticket is on its way out. Replacing it fast are e-tickets that can be booked online and printed in the comfort of your own home. Your favourite travel agent can also print it for you.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has ruled that end-2007 is the deadline for all airlines to be e-ticketing compliant. However, airlines have the option of not using e-tickets. "While it is an industry decision to move to 100 per cent e-ticketing, individual airlines have the option not to make the conversion. It remains the business decision of each airline. However, there are a number of compelling reasons to join," says Robey Lal, head IATA, India.

To begin with, e-ticketing will allow airlines to save the cost of paper tickets (about $3 billion). Not only that, an e-ticket costs $1 to process against $10 for a paper ticket. If this isn't compelling enough, here is something more. IATA, which currently supplies 340 million paper tickets annually to travel agents across the globe, will turn off the flow of paper tickets at the end of 2007. Without IATA's distribution systems, producing and distributing tickets will cost a bomb for airlines.

Many airlines flying into India are e-ticketing compliant in other parts of the world, but not in India. Turkish Airlines is one such airline though Geeta Gulati, reservation manager at Turkish Airlines informs that the airline is likely to implement e-ticketing by year-end. According to Kapil Kaul, CEO, Indian subcontinent & Middle East, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, an airline would need to invest at least $1-2 million for basic e-ticketing infrastructure, which goes up depending on the size and scale of the airline's operations.

Ankur Bhatia, MD, Amadeus India, the leading global-distribution-system player in India, informed that they launched e-ticketing services in India in 2004 and have 46 airlines using this service. Amadeus has also helped train 18,000 CISF personnel across India on how an e-ticket looks.

The worldwide e-ticketing penetration in March 2006 was 49 per cent while it was 42 per cent in Asia Pacific. India was lagging behind at about 17 per cent. "The target for 2006 is 70 per cent," says Bhatia.

Today over 900 agents in India can issue e-tickets. This is set to grow as more airlines "" especially Air India and Indian "" adopt e-ticketing.