Advertisment

On Cloud Nine

author-image
DQI Bureau
New Update

Irrespective

of the travel destination, today one can book the air ticket sitting in the

comfort of one's office or home, and do a lot of other stuff like

re-scheduling the journey, choosing the seat and can even do a web check in.

While airline companies are offering Internet based services for a while it is

only with the advent of no frills low cost airline companies that increased the

awareness levels. eTicketing has almost become a norm with IATA advancing the

vision of 100% implementation of eTicketing globally by 2007.

Advertisment
Key Trends for 2006
  • eTicketing has almost become a

    norm with IATA advancing the vision of 100% implementation of

    eTicketing globally by 2007

  • Airlines will explore feasibility

    of eliminating all paper documents

  • Websites of airlines will become

    major eCommerce sites of India

  • No abatement in investment in IT

The

airline companies need to ramp up their IT infrastructure to meet the demands of

a digital economy. IATA's aim to eliminate paper tickets also works in favor

of the airline companies, which need to shell out huge sums on ticket

stationary. For instance, IATA processes 300 mn tickets every year. Producing an

eTicket costs just around $1 as compared to a paper ticket, which costs around

$30.

To

bring in a technology standardization across the world, IATA has put in place an

action list, and on top of the agenda are tasks like: stopping the disbursement

of paper tickets by the end of 2007, coordinating with stakeholders to ensure

readiness, examining the feasibility of eliminating all other paper documents.

Advertisment

As we

look at the industry dynamics, two kinds of players-budget and full service

operators constitute the market. But in terms of IT, irrespective of the kind of

airways, all have good systems in place. Take the case of Air Deccan, which has

made a record of sorts through its site, which has become one of the biggest

eCommerce sites in India.

The

pressure from IATA in the coming days on pro-active IT systems tuned for 100%

eTicketing makes airline a hot vertical that will go on aggressive IT spending

mode both in terms of hardware and new apps. Hence it's a big opportunity for

the vendors. At the same time, all these developments indicate that the CIOs of

airline companies also face numerous challenges in evolving an IT model that can

scale up as things evolve. We spoke to some CIOs of airline companies and

checked about the state of IT infrastructure.

Says

Arvind Saksena, CIO, Air Deccan, “We detached from the norm of collaborating

with the global distribution system (GDS) and evolved our own Airline

Distribution System (ADS) as our aim was to offer state-of-the-art services at

lower cost and a system on our own made business sense.” Another low cost

carrier Spice Jet also took the eCommerce route and developed its own systems

and by taking a minimalist approach to its eCommerce portal has created a

user-friendly interface that makes eTicketing a child's play.

Advertisment

As we

look at the full service carriers like Jet Airways, they too have

state-of-the-art IT infrastructure as they have been ruling the airspace for the

past few years.

Consulting Panel

Virender Pal GM-IT (Spl

Projects), SpiceJet

Arvind

Saxena
, CIO, Air Deccan




Looking

at some of the IT challenges, the most important one is managing system uptime.

For instance when the portal is down for even a few minutes, it means huge loss

in revenue. Another challenge is working on the payment gateway, so that the

passenger is absolutely comfortable doing an eTransaction with the credit card.

For instance, it took Spice Jet nearly two-thirds of the overall time for

developing the payment gateway for the website.

If the

airline company aims at maximizing its eTicketing, it should have multiple

points of ticket bookings. When Easy Jet, a successful low cost carrier in

Europe, started operations a few years back, they had online bookings along with

multiple points of sale for selling tickets. In all, a CIO has to explore a

whole lot factors in deploying IT and in the bargain has to choose best of the

breed solutions.

Shrikanth G   



shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in
 

Advertisment