Airport geared for e-ticketing
30 October 2006



Bahrain International Airport is fully prepared to support airlines in implementing a global e-ticketing drive, a top official said yesterday.

is equipping itself with necessary IT infrastructure to comply with the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) directive to airlines to have 100 per cent e-ticketing by November next year, said Civil Aviation Affairs (CAA) Assistant Under-Secretary Ahmed Nemat Ali.

"Under directives of Deputy Prime Minister and Transportation Minister Shaikh Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the CAA is continuously implementing latest developments in the air transport industry," he told an IATA-supported seminar on e-ticketing at the Movenpick Hotel yesterday.

It was attended by airline officials, travel agents and staff from the airport, Bahrain Airport Services and the immigration department.

The transfer from the present system using paper tickets to the e-ticketing will create many challenges for civil aviation authorities and airports around the world, said Mr Ali.

"The main challenge lies in training airport security and ground handling staff to become familiar with the new system to meet international security standards," he noted.

"They should also be trained to deal with problems caused by passengers arriving late to check in or those denied boarding due to overbooking.

"We are therefore looking forward to the support of both IATA and Association of Bahrain Travel and Tours Agents (Abtta) to help us overcome these challenges."

The rapid growth in the numbers of passengers and aircraft as well as the increasing volume of air cargo place increasing demands on the need to provide both robust security procedures and meet stringent aviation safety requirements, said Mr Ali.

"Such demands have required the international community to seriously consider means of developing techniques and procedures to handle passengers and baggage at airports, utilising latest technology.

"Airlines are also looking to achieve considerable cost savings through the introduction of state-of-the-art technology and have initiated through IATA the Simplifying the Business (StB) project which is expected save $6.5 billion (BD2.45bn), of which $3.5bn (BD1.32bn) would be achieved by implementing e-ticketing."

E-ticketing will not only reduce major costs to the airlines but will also have many other significant benefits such as:
o Reducing transaction time in issuing tickets;
o Enabling passengers to issue their own tickets in the office or at home;
o Increasing airport capacity by reducing time spent by passengers in check-in procedures;
o Reducing responsibilities of airport staff.

Mr Ali thanked the major participants in the seminar, Sabre, Galileo and Gulf Air, who shared their experience of the exciting new development in travel technology.

IATA GCC country manager Ebrahim Kamal said the Bahrain airport was the only one in the region to hold such an important seminar on e-ticketing.

IATA will stop issuing paper tickets after January 2008, he noted.

"Those airlines which fail to implement e-ticketing will lose distribution channels which number 60,000 travel agents worldwide," said Mr Kamal.

"Airlines which are 100 per cent e-ticketing enabled will not be able to continue their code-sharing and interline agreements with those that are not."

Mr Kamal said the Middle East and North Africa region had the second lowest e-ticketing penetration in the world, which is almost 100 per cent in the US, 70pc in Europe and only 12pc in the Middle East.

"Though we started the e-ticketing initiative in June 2004, some Arab carriers started thinking about it very late.

"They should realise that e-ticketing is an option now, but it will be the only way of travel from 2008."

Mr Kamal said 100pc e-ticketing by the end of next year will also drastically reduce the cost of passenger processing for the airlines.

Gulf Air head of distribution and e-commerce Lars Denlew made a presentation on the success achieved by the airline in implementing the e-ticketing strategy.

"We have already achieved 65pc e-ticketing penetration in our network, and are fully geared to make it 100pc before the deadline set by IATA," he added



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