Deccan launches 'cell phone ticketing' facility

Bangalore, Nov 5 (UNI) India's first low cost carrier Deccan today announced its 'mFly' initiative in partnership with Oxigen, a market leader in electronic virtual distribution services, enabling passengers to book, pay and generate an e-ticket on their mobile phones.

Addressing a joint press conference here, Deccan Executive Chairman Capt G R Gopinath and Oxigen Chairman and Managing Director Pramod Saxena said the new initiative would be a 'prepaid user account', accessible through mobile phone to book Deccan tickets instantly.

The company hoped to utilise the vast potential available in the country, where nearly 200 million mobile phone users were covered under the network. Deccan passengers would be able to book tickets any time and practically from any location and reduce dependence on debit or credit cards and ticketing windows, he added.

Mr Saxena said the facility would be available in 50,000 outlets across the country. The number of outlets would cross five lakh in the coming years, he said, adding that the company's dream was to ensure IT enabled services even in small shops.

He said the company outlets already provided various services such as bill payment and subscription. It had clocked Rs 600 crore revenue through six million transactions.

He hoped that the transaction would exceed 20 million and the revenue would cross Rs 1,000 crore during this year.

UNI