Indian, Galileo tie-up for e-ticketing

Chennai, Jan 18: Indian has entered into a tie-up with Galileo to launch e-ticketing services in the domestic sector.

Talking to newspersons here today, Indian CMD Vishwapati Trivedi said ''Indian has chosen Galileo as its major Global Distribution Service Provider (GDS) partner for paperless e-tickets''.

''e-tickets in association with Galileo will be issued for flights departing from 11 cities to the six metros, he said adding there would be around 700 e-ticketing outlets in these cities to extend the services to customers.

Mr Trivedi also mentioned that e-ticketing will cover the entire Indian network by March 2007 by setting up 2000 e-ticketing outlets.

''This initiative will not only help us simplify the business but also provide extra convenience to the passengers, he said.

Galileo India Chief Executive Officer Bruce Hanna pointed out that e-ticketing initative will help travel agents enhance efficiency and productivity as it will cut down ticketing requirements and consequently printing of flight coupons.

''e-ticketing will also eradicate ticket fraud and revenue leakage through automation of check in and ticket change control and the purging of lost and stolen tickets'', he added.

''Rather than paper, the e-ticketing process uses a database to track the sale and use of tickets with the database stored and updated by the validating airline'', he said adding ''all subsequent transactions including refunds, exchanges, check-in, void and settlement were in the holding database.

UNI