Electronic Ticketing already was an issue in one of my articles, but the importance of it for the airline industry forces me to revert to the issue. IATA has set the deadline for the implementation of worldwide electronic tickets to be 31 December 2007.

Whereas many of my customers and partners have started to implement E-TKT, or at least are looking for providers, there is still a large group of airlines in all areas of the world, that have not even started to look into the issue at all!

Those of you, who are subscribing to the E-publication and have not yet started the E-TKT project, please keep in mind the following:

• You have to select a provider that will run the implementation program for you. The selection is not as easy as it seems, you have to specify your requirements, compare costs, look at the provider’s capabilities, etc.

• You have to set up a project team that will be responsible for the implementation of E-TKT on your side, as a counterpart to the provider’s team.

• Once a provider has been found, it can be estimated that the implementation of E-TKT including E-TKT Interlining will take up 9-12 months minimum, depending on how quickly the interline agreements can be implemented.

• You have to get in touch with GDS and airport handlers in order to get travel agencies connected and DCS systems updated.

• You have to think about the implementation plan, which routes first, by selected flights only, specific countries, etc.

• You have to roll out marketing campaigns in order to prepare your customers to this new mode of travel documentation.

• The pipelines of the providers are getting fuller. You are running the risk to not be able to implement on time if you wait much longer.

As you can see, the list of activities is long, and the bullets here are only a couple of issues that come to mind immediately.

Not being ready on time might have dramatic consequences for an airline that has interline agreements in place today: all interline agreements are cancelled! The reason being the fact, that fully compliant E-TKT airlines will not continue to accept paper tickets.

Can you afford this? I don’t think so but, you can answer the following question much easier yourself: How much of your total revenue is generated through Interline?

You could of course assume that that the IATA schedule will not be met and that the 2007 deadline will be postponed. In that case you would still have time to implement E-TKT. I can only advise you not to do so. IATA is pushing hard and so am I. The savings after the E-TKT implementation make the business case an easy issue. Please also look at my article in the archives, in which you find a list of the major cost saving items in E-TKT. (click here to see previous article)

There are custom made packages available that you could choose from in order to achieve E-TKT implementation as cost conscious as possible. I can only advise you to take a decision soon, as you are definitely running out of time