With the International Air Transport Association's approaching 2007 deadline for 100 percent e-ticketing issuance, the major airline alliances—Oneworld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance—largely have achieved e-ticketing standards among member airlines, a key component for carrier connectivity.
In addition to obliterating the red ink stains on the hands of ticket handlers, IATA said the move to go completely paperless cuts down on costs, streamlines the ticketing process, enhances interline opportunities and enables last-minute ticket changes, among other benefits.
Oneworld said it was the first alliance to become fully e-ticket enabled last year. Meanwhile, barring newly added members, SkyTeam and Star Alliance have since implemented and adhered to e-ticketing and interline standards among members.
Mark Erwin, member of the SkyTeam steering committee and Continental Airlines senior vice president for Asia/Pacific and corporate development, last month said that, notwithstanding Russia-based Aeroflot
(see story), "In April, we will be 100 percent interline e-ticket compatible."
Star Alliance also has brought on new members, and apart from those added in recent months, electronic ticketing standards are in place. "We have minimum joining requirements and our two new carriers—South African Airways and Swiss—have agreed to accept them," said Nanci Cheberenchick, Star Alliance director of sales and marketing development for the Americas. "We will start the integration, so it's a matter of doing the system integration as the carriers come on board, then user acceptance testing of the pairings, then finally the launch."
Meanwhile, a Oneworld spokesperson said, "We would expect any new recruit to have those links in place on the day it joins."
Although the alliances appear to be ahead of the curve when it comes to electronic ticketing, Bryan Wilson, IATA electronic ticketing project director, said that, globally, 48.7 percent of tickets issued in March were electronic, but have been moving upward toward the 100 percent goal by the end of 2007. "I'd love to be able to say it's at 50 percent," Wilson said. "In the last six months, we're averaging two points a month and it's generally getting faster. Clearly, to get to our date we need to speed it up a bit more. Our message to carriers is: Speed up ET. There's no reason why they shouldn't get to 100 percent with us."
Wilson said that while only 40 percent of agents are issuing e-tickets, that figure represents a much larger percentage of flights. "You may say, 'That's 60 percent to go; that sounds bad,' but that 40 percent of travel agents issue 87 percent of all the tickets," he said. "Without any new ones coming into ET, we could get to 87 percent. In March, we actually had eight airlines issue ETs for the first time. The proportions are heading in the right direction. Am I going to say that all the airlines are going to do it? The answer is no, but they're using travel agents for such small volume of tickets that it really makes no sense for them to continue with that distribution channel."
Wilson noted the primary barriers to e-ticket entry among carriers that rely solely on paper tickets are money and time to get systems in place. Carriers that have enabled electronic ticketing, but have low penetration, are finding problems from coordinating with ground traveler services to technological difficulties in synching interline agreements.
SkyTeam faces a unique challenge in bringing its newest carrier, Aeroflot, into the e-ticket fold, as the Russian government requires a paper ticket when the point of sale is Russia. That will change, hopes SkyTeam and IATA.
Continental and SkyTeam's Erwin said SkyTeam is working with Aeroflot to bring the carrier up to speed, while also moving through regulatory issues in Russia. "We are cautiously optimistic that over 2006 Aeroflot will also join the SkyTeam e-ticketing," Erwin said.
"IATA and the leading Russian airlines, including Aeroflot, have been holding meetings with the ministry of transport in Russia to suggest that if they redefined what this receipt for purchasing a seat is, and that they redefine it in a certain way without having to make legal changes, that Russia could comply," according to IATA's Wilson. "The minister of transport is checking on it and we hope imminently that he will sign the documentation that is being prepared, which will give relief to the various Russian airlines that they can get along with this."