Wednesday, July 13, 2005
PAL, American Airlines launch interline e-ticketing
PHILIPPINE Airlines (PAL) and American are jointly introducing Tuesday electronics ticketing on their interline arrangement, enabling each carrier to issue e-tickets on the other's flights.
PAL and American Airlines passengers can now use a single e-ticket when their itineraries include travel on both carriers. PAL customers will especially benefit from the convenience of interlining with American, the world's largest airline, which serves more than 250 cities in 40 countries.
PAL and American have long had an interline arrangement, albeit in paper tickets.
The e-ticketing deal with American is PAL's first with a partner airliner and places the flag carrier in an elite category--it is among just 10 percent of 254 airlines belonging to the International Air Transport Association to offer interline e-ticketing.
More significantly, it pushes PAL further along the path to the "ticketless" regime envisioned by IATA for all the world's carriers by 2007.
PAL introduced e-ticketing on May 1, 2004 on flights between Manila and Cebu. It has since expanded the facility to cover services to eight more domestic points: Davao, Zamboanga, Puerto Princesa, Iloilo, Bacolod, General Santos, Legaspi and Cagayan de Oro.
PAL also offers e-ticketing on six of its busiest international routes--Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Vancouver and Hong Kong.
Likewise, the airline has enabled its partners in the travel trade to issue PAL e-tickets, further expanding the distribution channels for the new technology.
Since October 2004, travel agents subscribing to the Abacus system in the Philippines and Hong Kong, and to Sabre in the US and Canada have been issuing PAL e-tickets to their customers.
Currently, over 60 percent of PAL ticket sales on eligible routes are in the form of e-tickets. Overall, more than 30 percent of all ticket sales throughout the PAL system are in e-tickets.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (July 13, 2005 issue)
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