Amadeus and Sahara tie-up for automated ticketing solutions

Amadeus, a Global Distribution System (GDS) and travel industry technology provider and Air Sahara, an Indian domestic carrier, have announced the inking of a partnership to deliver automated ticketing solutions for the Indian travel agent community. 

A key deliverable of this initiative would be the installation of the Amadeus Automated Ticket Printers at travel agency locations, which would be delivered free of cost to travel agents across the country in a phased manner. Amedeus is planning to install 150 odd printers in the market. Amadeus would bear the cost of installing the printers in top agencies of Sahara all over India.

The Amadeus Automated Ticket Printer is a Windows based application that interfaces with the Amadeus system and automates the printing of tickets. This enables the travel agent to edit the ticket, save it in a local database and preview it before printing. Elimination of manual intervention in the ticketing process results in minimization of errors coupled with productivity enhancement and time saving for the travel agent.

Alok Sharma, VP (Corporate Strategy and Commercial), Air Sahara, said, "The Automated Ticket Printing would also facilitate the generation of MIS reports for the airline including Airline Sales reports which list the entire gamut of sales information for a particular period, Agency Sales reports which list all airline sales made by a particular agency, User Sales reports which list all airline sales made by a specific user and Statistical charts which display the information in a reader friendly diagrammatic format. Easy access to this critical sales data allows the airline to better control planning cycles and build efficiencies.

Also present on the occasion were UK Bose, CEO, Air Sahara and Ankur Bhatia, MD, Amadeus Indian Subcontinent. Speaking about the future plans, Sharma said that in another three months time Sahara in collaboration with Amadeus would be introducing e-ticketing. Explaining the concept of e-ticketing, Bhatia said that e-ticketing does not mean that the tickets would be issued through Internet. When a passenger books a ticket he would be given a reference number instead of a physical ticket and based upon that number he would get his boarding pass directly at the airport. This would lead to lesser dependency on delivery of the tickets and would also lead to a decrease in the cost of issuing a ticket. It would be beneficial to all-the travel agents, the passengers and the airline.

Cyber News Service