E-ticketing airline booking at your fingertips

What if you suddenly get a call at 3 in the morning at your Mumbai residence which says that you need to be in Delhi first thing in the morning for an emergency meeting. How do you book the ticket? Travel agencies or airline offices are not open. What do you do? If it had been the past, you would just have to go to the airport and try your luck. But now, however, there is reason to cheer. All one has to do is log on to the airline reservation website, feed in the necessary date, pay online via a credit card. The role of paper is only in the ticket printed on your printer. This is e-ticketing...the paperless revolution. In brief, e-ticketing is the method to document sale and track usage and account for a passenger's transportation without requiring to issue paper value documents.

Though the concept is a late entrant in India, in the USA it was in operation as far back as the '80s, primarily by domestic carriers operating point to point flights. United Airlines started experimenting with e-ticketing in 1984 but it took six years before the procedure was actually implemented. But once it got started, the travel industry globally saw a metamorphosis in the ticketing system.

On the Indian front, the concept was initiated by Air Deccan, India's first no frills carrier. Jet Airways recently launched online booking along with e-ticketing service.

Gaining ground

India's infancy is in stark contrast to e-ticketing's role globally. Forty per cent of all American travel and 15 per cent of global travel is done through e-tickets. In India, the concept is however slowly finding takers. At present, about 40-50 passengers per day travel via e-tickets. Lalit Sheth, chairman cum managing director, Raj Travels says, “The concept of e-ticketing will catch on but over a period of time. Even the concept of the World Wide Web (WWW) and e-mail was initially accepted in a sceptical manner. The same goes for e-ticketing. However, we have seen that there is a definite section of travellers who are taking advantage of the developing technological trend.”

Jet, which is the latest entrant, has no doubt that it will find takers. Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, chief executive officer, Jet Airways, says, “The initiative by Jet enables its customers to book tickets on the airline website and travel with paperless tickets. Travelling on an e-ticket is now becoming a global practise; welcomed and appreciated by all travellers. This is because e-ticketing is convenient, safe, quicker to deliver and reduces the hassle of carrying conventional air tickets. Passengers can now book, pay and print their Jet Airways e-ticket online from any point globally.”

The technology is bound to have more impact on corporate travel simply because it accounts for 70 per cent of all travel. Also, the corporate segment is more technology savvy and e-ticketing offers great flexibility to makes changes in the itinerary and do last minute bookings.

The benefits

Once the concept gets going in India, e-ticketing will beat paper tickets hands down. Forget the effort required in buying a paper ticket, even costs come down with e-ticketing. For example, in the US, if one is booking an e-ticket, on logging to the website the buyer gets approximately 800 different fares for a particular destination. This is in store for India once the concept takes off.

Says Belson Coutinho, assistant manager, marketing, Jet Airways (India) Pvt Ltd, “The best advantage is the convenience factor. One can plan trips at any given time. In the case of Jet's e-ticketing, one can book just two hours prior to a flight. We launched this concept with the complete focus on the customer. Even our booking engine is seamless as compared to any other airline. A second advantage is the safe mode of transacting business. Physical tickets which one has to carry at present is stored digitally in an e-ticket and there are no chances of losing it. The system stores data about the traveller on our website. Information once fed in is kept secure and does not have be keyed in again. All a corporate has to do is carry a print-out of the ticket and photo identification. Also, if one needs to make any changes, the same charges are applied as a normal ticket. Even the Apex fares pertain to e-tickets as the pricing is the same. On a futuristic note, we expect at least 200 bookings a day in India but a lot of people from overseas are booking from our website. The major markets are the US, UK and UAE and among Indian states it is Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad. It is also being noticed that people from smaller markets are getting on the e-ticketing bandwagon. Our only disadvantage is that out of 42 destinations we operate from, we do not provide the e-ticketing facility from Sri Lanka and Srinagar due to security reasons, from Kochi as there is no real time interface for e-ticketing and Khajuraho as it is an offline point. From Kathmandu, approvals are being awaited.”

Deccan Air has a system called 'Navitaire' developed by Accenture. Captain G R Gopinath, managing director, Air Deccan said, “We have a much cheaper option; wherein the ticket can be generated by a travel agent, a call centre or by the customer himself. The customer and travel agent can have access to the entire inventory. Our call centre is linked to a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which is linked to our reservation system, which in turn is linked to the payment gateway. The cost is almost 1/20th of the usual cost. For business travellers, we are quite useful because we provide corporate accounts wherein on registering with us, we provide them with an account number and a code. When registered, they are connected to their company's internal accounts system. So they do not have to produce a bill for their travel which eases accounting hassles. Everything is automatically accounted in their system.”

Some hurdles

Though e-ticketing is set for a smooth take-off, there are a few hurdles on the runway. The major ones are security and government regulations about entering an airport, especially without a ticket. Says Coutinho, “The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has approved of the concept and provided a mandatory list of identity cards, which include a driving licence, election card, passport, photo credit card, pan card, using which one can enter the airport along with the e-ticket print-out. On our part, we have conducted an educational programme across all airports in India, thereby ensuring a clear pathway for our travellers. Another problem is the mindset against transactions on the web. This is slowly changing as customers are getting accustomed to using credit cards over the net. To ensure further safety, Verisign has secured our site and Thawte verifies the web-booking engine.”

Heena Munshaw, managing director, Beacon Holidays believes that another hurdle could be the fact that since in e-ticketing payment is upfront, some companies could have a problem since they are used to credit periods. “It will however work if one is travelling on his/her own accord. Initially, Indians will be apprehensive about travelling without a paper ticket but they have to trust the system. Worldwide, this concept has been a success due to the convenience factor, so what stops India?”

Anand Palekar, training manager for a multinational bank thinks the system will be ideal for business travellers. “They will not have to depend on their travel agent and a whole lot of coordination-stress can be done away with at just the click of a button. However, as a frequent traveller, I do not trust the internet mechanism and would personally not be comfortable dealing online,” he says.

Sentiments like these show that though technology has made its impact in India, the mindset needs a revamp. The Indian business traveller has trotted the globe using the best of technology but is sceptical when the same is brought to India. But it is merely a matter of time before this hesitancy is overcome and e-ticketing finds its takers.