E-Newsline – Frank Socha: Mr. Stepanek, the E-Conference was a successful event and E-Ticketing was one of the major items discussed. However, many airlines are still undetermined about how to start the entire project. One question is paramount: How to prepare the E-TKT team and which departments to involve?
Jaroslav Stepanek: The E-ticketing process is very complex which means the team must be complete and multi-disciplinary in order to achieve the goal of a successful implementation. At CSA, the heart of the team consists of Ticketing, GDS, DCS, IT and Revenue Accounting specialists. In the phase of implementation, support from the training center is very important due to the necessity of massive training for ticketing and handling agents.
E-Newsline – Frank Socha: I hear the question about the integration of Revenue Accounting quite a lot. What has changed in your Revenue Accounting department and how was the staff prepared?
Jaroslav Stepanek: The participation of specialists from Revenue Accounting is essential from the very beginning of the project. We have developed new programs which translate the data feed from the ET database and modified reporting tools for Revenue Accounting staff. Also, we have strengthened the team in order to be able to handle the new E-TKT requirements.
E-Newsline – Frank Socha: Was your E-TKT provider able to help you with the formation of your team, to provide support throughout the entire project until implementation and is this an important issue to distinguish providers from one another- I mean the quality of support, exceeding the pure technical implementation?
Jaroslav Stepanek: The provider support is the key issue for success!
Without close cooperation of the teams the goal cannot be met. The risk on the customer side, however, is always bigger in terms of ensuring sufficient support before signing the contract and starting the project.
And here is a warning: Due to the known circumstances in the IT industry, the availability of provider resources will become critical soon, because the airline industry is accelerating the speed of implementation of E-TKT in order to make the deadline of December 2007. This means, that those airlines that will wait much longer with their first steps will face a situation where providers don’t have any slots available anymore for a timely implementation.
E-Newsline – Frank Socha: Assuming that a strong team has been assigned to the project, what would you think, is a good estimate in terms of duration of the entire project, from the selection of the E-TKT provider until the complete implementation and becoming operational?
Jaroslav Stepanek:Definitely, you must have a detailed plan and designated milestones. I think the total time to implement E-TKT is 6 to 9 months.
E-Newsline – Frank Socha: Can you provide me with an estimate about the savings generated through
E-TKT?
Jaroslav Stepanek: First, the implementation brings definite costs with it and in a mixed environment (paper/electronic) savings are not so quantifiable. We are expecting savings around 2-3 USD per /ticket at
a later stage, once E-TKT outruns the utilization of paper tickets.
E-Newsline – Frank Socha: Has the implementation of E-TKT increased your web sales, circumventing the classic GDS channel and thus enabling CSA to save on distribution costs? Mr. Stepanek, please tell me the advantages of E-TKT, the way you experience them in your day-to-day business at Czech Airlines.
Jaroslav Stepanek: No, it has not increased our web sales, but implementation of E-TKT to our on-line booking system (IBS) helped Czech Airlines to make the IBS users E-TKT conscious and to accelerate the whole booking/ticketing process and thus the replacement of paper tickets by E-TKT.
E-Newsline – Frank Socha: Last but not least, what would your advice be to those airlines, which have not yet started E-TKT, but are ready and willing to do so as soon as possible?
Jaroslav Stepanek: Hire experts in order to reach quickly your targeted goals, talk to your system providers and ensure they are capable of satisfying your expectations in terms of time and functional requirements.
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