Travel agents demur on e-ticketing compliance

Mumbai: If you are planning to travel abroad to multiple destinations, your trip is likely to become cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive in the near future, says the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI).
The International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) decision to go in for 100 per cent e-ticketing comes into effect from June 1 and this is likely to complicate the process of booking a multiple itinerary ticket, TAAI says.
Of the 7-8 million international tickets issued from India, close to 1.5 million or 20 per cent are paper tickets, TAAI said.
However, in domestic travel, about 95 per cent of the tickets issued are e-tickets.
According to IATA guidelines, if a travel agent is unable to issue an e-ticket on a specific route, he or she has to instruct the airline to issue a paper ticket. Only airlines would have the mandate to issue paper tickets from June 1.
“Now when we send this online instruction to the airline to issue a paper ticket, the process will take at least 72 hours and then the paper ticket will be sent by courier to the agent,” Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) Vice-President, Mr Pradip Lulla told Business Line. TAFI is supporting TAAI on the issue.
Moreover, it would involve nearly Rs 20 crore additional expenditure for the agents on courier charges, Mr Prasad said.
24/05/08 Business Line

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General May 2008