Indonesian Airlines and E-Ticketing

While maintaining high safety standards is a top priority for ensuring flight safety, a number of full-service airlines have adopted e-ticketing as part of their efforts to boost services to their customers. An e-ticketing system enables passengers that book an airline ticket to get a copy of their receipt containing the record locator or reservation number and the e-ticket number, instead of the old-style paper ticket as the article in the Jakarta Post explains.

“Those unaccustomed to using an e-ticket might feel as though they have no ticket. An e-ticket exists only as a digital record in the airline computer,” said Frank van’t Hof, interim country manager of Air France KLM, one of the airlines that offer e-ticketing.

He said that an e-ticket greatly benefits both travelers and airlines. For travelers, it eliminates the problem and costs that travelers experience when they lose a paper ticket. “If a boarding pass is lost, getting a replacement is often as easy as going up to the ticket counter and giving your confirmation number for a new one,” he said.

While for airlines, e-tickets are a cheaper and more efficient method of managing tickets. It eliminates the manual tasks required to process and account for paper airline tickets and saves the cost of other materials, such as the ticket jacket.

A passenger that holds an e-ticket has the option of checking in online and printing out his boarding pass at home or in the office.

“This service is available between 30 hours and one hour before the passenger’s scheduled flight departure,” he said.

With benefits for both airlines and passengers, it is no wonder that more and more airlines are setting up electronic ticketing systems — something that has received an enthusiastic response from passengers worldwide.

For instance, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which merged with Air France in 2004, has made a huge investment in the infrastructure of its e-ticketing system, which offers convenience and comfort for passengers.

Van’t Hof boasts that KLM was in the vanguard of the move to e-ticketing, saying that e-ticketing was first introduced in the Netherlands in 2000 when more and more people started becoming familiar with e-sales thanks to the Internet. KLM offices at almost all destinations around the world use e-ticketing, including the one in Indonesia, where KLM introduced e-ticketing in 2002.

E-tickets can be issued by an airline office and by a travel agent. When passengers make an online booking, they directly purchase their seats on the aircraft through the airline website.

“When one makes an online booking, he or she will various price options and have direct access to best the fares and seats,” Van’t Hof explained.

In the context of Indonesia, many passengers still use the traditional method of booking, although the number of those making online reservations continues to grow.

Efforts are underway at the Air France KLM Group to educate the public in Indonesia by setting up an Internet-based e-ticketing kiosk at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

“Our intention is to make more Indonesian passengers aware of the convenience, comfort and ease of online booking,” he said, adding that he hoped 20 percent of passengers from Indonesia would be making reservations online by the end of this year.