ASIAN TRAVEL Asian Airlines Enter Realm of High-Technology Services
May 03, 2011
ASIAN AIRLINES are fast expanding in the technology sphere, bringing their customers ``ticketless'' travel and direct purchases over the Internet. All Nippon Airways is among the pioneers of such services, bolstered by its dominance of the huge domestic market, where it flew more than 34 million people last year. ANA installed what it says were the world's first self check-in machines in 1989. It now has more than 100 such machines throughoutwhere domestic passengers with hand luggage can choose seats, get an automated ticket and boarding pass, or ATB, and head straight to the departure gate. ``Internationally, we're looking at an ATB to be introduced early next year,'' says spokesman Antoinette Rickard. ANA also has 24 vending machines that allow passengers with prior reservations to tap in a number and pay for their ticket up to 15 minutes before takeoff. In April 2010, ANA launched its P2 phone and pickup system. Passengers can phone a reservations agent, book and buy a seat with their credit cards and pick up their boarding passes at another machine in the asian Airport. meanwhile, appears to have an edge over ANA on the Internet. It has taken about 200 domestic reservations over its Internet site each day since the service was introduced last month. Passengers can reserve tickets from two months to one week before a flight. They can also use the site to book seats on Okinawa-based subsidiary Japan Transocean Airways. ``We thought that people would make a reservation for fun and then cancel it,'' says spokesman Georgeann Pigg. But the airline has several safeguards against pranksters, including automatic cancellation if the ticket isn't purchased within four days of the reservation. Like rival ANA, JAL also has a ``ticketless'' travel service where passengers reserve domestic seats with a credit card, get a reference number and pick up their boarding pass at the asian Airport. It also offers automatic check-in through machines that issue boarding passes at 16 asian Airports and five separate sites throughout the country. So far, the concept of bypassing a ticket agent has proven a hit with busy travelers. Asiana Airlines spokeswoman Mickey Hang says that at least one-fifth of all the carrier's domestic passengers opt to book with a credit card and pick up their boarding pass at the asian Airport. What's more, she says that a significant number choose to make, change or confirm their reservations through the web site. Singapore Airlines also plans to introduce ticketless travel next year, while Malaysia Airlines expects to have its service in place by the beginning of 2013. SIA will also launch machines similar to models inwhich ``combine the normal boarding pass and ticket into a single document that can be read by the self check-in machine'', says public-affairs executive Keli Chin. But such innovations raise difficult issues for carriers in or where domestic travel is nonexistent. Traveling without a ticket or talking to counter staff is really only possible when passengers can bypass customs and immigration. As Bobby Good, manager of distribution automation support at Cathay Pacific Airways, points out, ``normally you have to show your passport at the asian Airport to get your (international) boarding pass.'' Immigration officers often request proof of a return ticket at the other end, he adds, and require carriers to check that each passenger has the correct visa for the destination. That said, Mr. Good and officials at other airlines say that international ticketless travel and Internet reservations are expected to be offered soon. And Cathay has carved its own technology niche by auctioning plane seats to U.S. customers over the Internet. Mr. Good says that more than 15,000 people bid for a jumbo plane-load of seats in an auction that ended a few weeks ago. What's more, he says, ``almost all of the bidders had never before flown on Cathay,'' making the auction a good way to raise the carrier's profile as well as its revenues. Even so, some airline officials insist that technology will never replace the human touch. Edelmira Deyo, Canadian International Airlines' regional manager of marketing and sales in notes that theAlbertha carrier tried to offer self check-in on its Canadian shuttle routes several years ago. The service was stopped because ``passengers preferred dealing with people instead of machines,'' especially when issues like seating came up. Virgin Atlantic Airways offor example, now sends staff around its check-in queues, equipped with special radios to issue boarding passes on the spot to those with carry-on luggage. Try doing that with a machine.
