1. Simplifying the Business Electronic Ticketing
Middle East Aviation IT Forum
Dubai
21 November 2005
Sherif Attia

2. Our mandate

3. IATA’s Board decision: Five focus areas
ET- electronic ticketing – 100% by 2007
CUSS - common use self service
RFID - radio frequency identification for baggage tags
Bar coded boarding passes
IATA e-freight by 2010
Adopted and approved by IATA Board of Governors and AGM in June 2004 and enhanced in Dec The worlds airlines are committed to these initiatives.

4. Our challenge is to: Deliver the largest programme in IATA’s history
in the shortest time
Manage the huge and many complexities
in the simplest way
Lead an industry change management revolution
not just a technology implementation

5. Airline Systems - The Success Story to date where paper is the Information Carrier
Distribution, reservations
and ticketing
(i.e from psgr. ctc to ticket issuance)
Passenger airport handling
(i.e check-in to flown)
Revenue accounting
(i.e revenue accrual)
IT providers IT IT IT

6. With e-ticketing, electronic data becomes the information carrier
Distribution, reservations
and ticketing
(i.e from psgr. ctc to ticket issuance)
Passenger airport handling
(i.e check-in to flown)
Revenue accounting
(i.e revenue accrual)
IT providers
Electronic ticketing process flow
Electronic ticketing data flow IT IT IT

7. What is electronic ticketing?
Method to document the sale
Tracks usage of passenger transportation
Details of the ticket are stored in the issuing (validating) airline’s computer system and made available to enable all transactions which could be carried out using a paper ticket.
It is not:
“Paperless”
Passengers still need an itinerary/receipt and ticket notices
“Ticketless”
The ticket still exists with a ticket number
The electronic ticket records are stored in an airline’s system

8. Our methodology

9. An IATA team supporting StB/ET

10. StB Support Model overview

11. Support Portal - StB knowledgebase
Find knowledge by:
Searching OR
Browsing by topic and category

12. Manage campaigns - Phase I
1st survey of all airlines
April-May 2005
Increase Airlines awareness of StB programme
Motivate/Assist airlines initiating electronic ticketing projects
Collect feed back to analyse and respond
Backed by MOUs with key ET Service Providers
Note that an airline may be green on ET and red on CUSS

13. Airlines categorised into e-ticketing capability
Full ET Capability
including 1st interline
First ET Issued
excluding interline
No ET capability
but plan to implement
No plans for ET
including no survey response

14. Phase 1- Progress Nov 04 - May 05
Status of 213 IATA members
Nov. 04
May 05

15. Manage campaigns - Phase II
2nd survey of all airlines
5 specific surveys of capability
ET - Ground handling companies
ET - Regulatory and legal barriers
ET - Red and Orange with their own systems
IATA E-Freight - Pilot countries
StB - China
End of Phase II: 23 November 2005
Note that an airline may be green on ET and red on CUSS

16. E-Ticketing Achievements

17. E-TICKETING: ACHIEVEMENTS
ET Penetration in September 2005 is 37%
Airlines are gradually switching into ET
Ten new airlines issued ET in BSPs in July, two more in August
Yellow and Green now 45% of total population (34% in May05 & 20% in Nov04 )
Larger airlines are proceeding more quickly – the 45% of airlines issuing ETs through IATA BSPs account for 67% of all BSP tickets.
Two airlines have now achieved 100% ET: Alaskan Airlines and its sister company: Horizon Air
though with a significant reduction in the number of interline agreements.

18. E-TICKETING: PENETRATION SEP’ 05

19. E-TICKETING: ACHIEVEMENTS
ET session at IATA AGM (session with 50 airline CEOs & deputies)
11 ET workshops and 4 StB’s in China – 680 people trained!
Material supporting ET has been revised
ET analysis for each airline now available
7 MOUs signed with critical ET service providers
Launched the ET Buddy System
IATA acting as the sponsor and matchmaker between airlines with ET experts and red and orange airlines.
To date, 16 airlines have expressed their willingness to provide resources.

20. E-TICKETING: M.East spotlight
ET Penetration 2.5% in September 2005 – the lowest Region
Only a few airlines have started issuing ET
Emirates, Gulf-Air, Royal Air Morocco, Oman-Air, Tunis-Air, Royal Jordanian – but only low proportions of travel agent sales
Only Emirates has achieved an electronic interline agreement
Every M.East airline has firm plans to issue ET by Q (promising)
The biggest challenges are with airlines managing their own IT systems
All other airlines are relying upon Service Providers – Sabre, SITA, Amadeus, Mercator, LHS and Air France Systems
Ground Handling remains a challenge with few systems ready yet.

21. Providing profile information to top managers

22. Providing deeper data insights

23. E-Ticketing Challenges

24. E-TICKETING: CHALLENGES
Airline
Yellow and Green carriers are not rolling out ET fast enough (average 50% ET)
Low rate of ET Interlining agreements vs. paper ones (Of the 35,000 Paper agreements in force, only 630 are Interline ET agreements - 1.8% to date).
Few airlines must upgrade their own system to become ET compliant.
External
Ground Handling companies’ ET capability for all clients.
Incomplete standards and implementation of new standards to enable airlines to maintain current business practices (not show stopper).
Removing Government and Regulatory Roadblocks.

25. E-TICKETING: Ground Handling
Airlines have several choices for their ground handling
Perform their own check-in with own DCS system
Have other airline or ground handler check-in their pax using the airline’s DCS system, with or without a CUTE environment at the airport
Have another airline or ground handler check-in their pax using that other company’s chosen DCS system – this is 3rd party ground handling
3rd Party Ground Handling is necessarily complex to ensure integrity of the e-ticket which resides with the operating carrier. The DCS system must meet IATA methods and be linked to customer airlines ET servers
At present very few DCS systems are ET compliant for 3rd Party
Airlines need to ensure that their Ground Handlers are ET compliant
System providers need to fill this capability gap quickly

26. E-TICKETING: Standards
Whilst there are sufficient standards for an airline to achieve 100%ET, some changes to standards will help certain airlines:
Irregular operations – without needing resort to a FIM
Group travel – above 9 in a group with a single ticket
3rd party ticket handling – allowing a handler to provide a ticket service
Pax with single letter name
Block space Code-shares, allowing marketing carrier to control coupons
Staff travel – support for sub-load and tickets valid for many carriers
Miscellaneous documents – removing the last use of paper
Infants – easing ticket issue without a seat for ATA carriers
All of these topics are addressed at IATA PSC in Nov 05

27. E-TICKETING: Government Issues
Whilst governments have no problems with e-tickets being issued, several have attached other processes to inspecting the paper ticket.
Immigration may require sight of a ticket to exit the country
The ticket may be required for a tax receipt
The ticket may be mandated as proof of receipt of purchase
The ticket may be required to enter an airport check-in zone
Other countries have adapted their procedures away from this use of a paper ticket
Remaining countries need help to be convinced that itinerary receipts and other mechanisms are adequate substitutes (progressing)

28. E-TICKETING: Interline
There are several challenges with establishing IET agreements
Airlines have up to 250 MITA agreements
Must assess which offer significant revenue – typically 20% offers 95+% benefits
GBR agreements take a long time to be determined – up to 3 months
Experienced airlines have speeded up considerably
Rely upon templates from system providers – and ensure GBR loaded as pro-forma
Testing an IET takes too long – up to another month
Develop standard test scripts and keep experienced team
Do first IETs with an experienced airline willing to help you through the process
IET costs too much – time commitment and system link charges
Airlines and system providers need to speed up, improve automation and reduce costs

29. E-Ticketing Actions ahead

30. E-TICKETING: Actions ahead
No more RED airlines by January 2006
Helping the Orange airlines who are late to start
Primary responsibility with System Providers
Direct help to those who are still not decided how to implement
ET Buddies
Eliminating the road-blocks
Government issues
Ground Handlers and DCS system compliance
Adding to ET standards
Speeding up the processes
More automation of interline process

31. For more information, go to the StB Support Portal
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Click on the StB Support Portal button