Adrian Bridgwater examines the emergence of a new layer of customer-focused technology advancement for the Arab world's travel industry
As the Middle East's travel industry strives to continue to lead the world in terms of infrastructure investment, it's no surprise to see the emergence of e-ticketing systems at the forefront of recent technology advancements. The number of carriers and the sheer number of flights into and out of the region mean that the passenger base is becoming even more sophisticated - a trend that will help front-line technology advancements like this to come on line successfully.
Electronic ticketing solutions enable airlines to improve business processes and reduce ticketing costs. As more airlines mandate the use of paperless processes, interline capabilities become critical. Implementing interline electronic ticketing increases the market opportunity by enabling multi-carrier itineraries. Responding to this need, Sabre Airline Solutions has developed the Interline Electronic Ticketing Hub to streamline interline implementations - and, crucially, the company is rolling this out in the Middle East and already boasts a number of high profile Arabian airlines.
Interline electronic ticketing gives a carrier the ability to seamlessly transfer coupons to its interline partners and to streamline revenue accounting processes by expediting revenue reconciliation and reducing the process of scanning paper documents. During irregular operations, IET facilitates the transfer of coupons to alternative flights on other airlines.
In the past, each IET implementation has been a unique and customised project requiring a dedicated link connecting each bilateral airline. The project can be complex; implementing all carriers can be a lengthy process. The Interline Electronic Ticketing Hub is a multilateral product that virtually eliminates the necessity for individual bilateral carrier implementations. With this new product, all participating airlines are linked to a reciprocal interline electronic ticketing system.
The hub verifies agreements between an inbound carrier and the receiving carrier and transforms this ticket into a neutral message using the receiving carrier's maps and rules. Thankfully, the base level of technology adoption in the Middle East is more than adequately powered to cope with these new layers of technology as they are brought on.
The hub is not just a routing mechanism; it supports and translates, if necessary, all EDIFACT releases and versions. If carriers implementing an IET connection utilise different EDIFACT versions, the hub will translate those messages into a format the receiving carrier can process. This translation process eliminates extensive development that was once required for carriers to establish the interline connection.
All unique carrier requirements can be supported with the initial connection to the hub. Once a carrier is connected, access is available to all other linked carriers through selective or universal activation. A vast array of diagnostic tools in the hub gives carriers the ability to more closely monitor interline traffic. These tools enable carriers to set notification thresholds through a graphical user interface. For example, if a link goes down and error messages are generated, an e-mail notification is sent notifying the carrier. Before the inception of these tools, someone physically had to discover such incidents.
The Interline Electronic Ticketing Hub also enables IET connectivity between two carriers not hosted within the Passenger Reservation System. Until now, at least one of the carriers was required to be hosted in the system.
Another key tool that helps airlines adapt to electronic commerce, the Sabre Airlines Solutions Electronic Ticket Hosting product enables a carrier to stay hosted on its existing system while acquiring the ability to issue electronic tickets and retain those records within the electronic ticketing database.
This solution eliminates both the need for carriers to build a costly system to distribute tickets electronically and the activities related to maintaining the electronic ticketing database. The product not only delivers electronic ticketing capability but also the increasingly valuable option of interline electronic ticketing connectivity.
The electronic ticketing solution provides Middle East based airlines the most cost-effective and efficient solution for issuing, refunding, exchanging and settling all transaction types. Additionally, the product provides functionality to expand electronic ticketing for the host carrier as well as its interline partners. This solution delivers substantial cost savings to the airline while simultaneously enhancing customer service and increasing relationships with its global interline partners.
"The benefits of moving to electronic ticketing are two-fold. First, we'll be able to reduce the costs incurred by processing paper tickets and second, we'll be able to improve efficiency and customer service levels," said Kevin Hartigan-Go, vice president information systems of Philippine Airlines. "With this implementation, we are well placed to facilitate electronic document exchange with other airlines with whom we have interline relationships, fulfilling the requirements of some U.S. carriers to support e-ticketing by 2005."
Arab airlines
Here in the Middle East, Oman Air has embarked upon a multi-year deal to help achieve its goals for long-term growth and profitability. Part of this programme will mean implementation of SabreSonic Ticket, an e-ticketing solution. Oman Air will also deploy Sabre AirFlite Planning and Scheduling Suite, the Sabre Planet profitability forecasting system, the Sabre Traverse loyalty management system and SabreSonic Web, an Internet booking engine.
The consulting team at Sabre Airline Solutions will support Revenue Manager and SabreSonic Ticket, enabling Oman Air to implement each solution as effectively as possible. The complete range of technology solutions will enable Oman Air to maximise revenues, provide higher quality services to passengers and minimise operational costs.
SabreSonic Web offers Oman Air the opportunity to drive online self-service by offering a variety of full-service features. Travellers can complete basic bookings and cancellations online. Hotel and car booking modules promote the airline's website as a single stop for travel and encourages travellers to book with the carrier's hotel and car rental partners.
"The support of the Sabre Airline Solutions consulting team with the implementation of Revenue Manager and SabreSonic Ticket will provide Oman Air with a significant strategic advantage throughout the Middle East region," said Abdulrahman Al Busaidy, chief executive officer of Oman Air.
As competition within the Middle East continues to intensify, Oman Air has selected Sabre eMergo Web access, an application service provider delivery platform, to access Revenue Manager and the Traverse system to achieve significant cost reductions and efficiency improvements through external hosting.
In another key regional development, Sabre and leading Middle East carrier Gulf Air have announced that they have signed an agreement to create a joint venture to be based in Bahrain. The establishment of this new company, Sabre Travel Network Middle East, brings together the world's leading global distribution system (GDS) and the vast local expertise of Gulf Air to further extend world-class products and services such as e-ticketing solutions into the Middle East region. Sabre will have a majority ownership in the new business.
The agreement includes a five-year contract with Sabre for the SabreSonic suite of products for passenger management, as well as additional operational software and consulting services.
Gulf Air and the Sabre Travel Network have had a marketing partnership for nearly 15 years. But the joint venture gives Sabre a stronger presence in the Middle East. As an influential local partner, Gulf Air is an established regional carrier, which, as the national airline of Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Oman, enjoys healthy support from its owning governments. The venture will provide technology services, bookable travel products and distribution services for travel agencies, corporations and travel suppliers in the region.
"The immense challenges facing the airline industry today require a concerted collaborative effort with specialist partners in both the public and private sectors," said James Hogan, president and chief executive of Gulf Air. "Sabre's innovative business and technology solutions make them a partner of choice in meeting our requirements and addressing the constant challenges of the competitive market. At the same time, Gulf Air's regional network and strong historic and geographic ties in the region will enable us to further leverage the services we offer."
The agreement also expands the relationship between Sabre Airline Solutions and Gulf Air for reservations, scheduling and operational technology to include a new departure control system through the SabreSonic offering and an aircraft provisioning system to streamline its catering operation. Gulf Air will engage the consulting services from Sabre for a major performance improvement exercise to optimise the full commercial advantage from the operational tools and technology the airline is using, including expanded operations decision support technology.
It is fair to say that although we have focused here on e-ticketing and the work going on within Gulf Air and Oman Air, other progressive-thinking carriers such as Emirates and Qatar airways are by no means behind with their own technology programmes.
The energy these companies are channelling into technology means that in many cases - with the volume of passenger traffic in the Middle East increasing all the time - that the region is being used as a test case for front line technologies about to come to market. This being the case, it's likely that the Middle East's travel industry will continue to shine as grows and develops.
© Middle East Travel 2005
