Abacus upgrades E-Ticketing to allow for Smoother Infant Bookings

Abacus has made upgrades to its electronic ticketing (e-ticketing) solution that will now allow travel agents to issue infant e-tickets independently, without the need to combine it with an adult or child e-ticket. 

Previously, e-tickets for an infant under the age of 24 months could only be issued with at least an adult or child in the ticketing command. However, this is impossible if the adult tickets need to be issued using Net Remit schemes and infant tickets using publish fare, which is a common practice in Asia Pacific. Hence, travel agents had to issue the tickets separately; electronic tickets for adults and paper tickets for infants.

Based on industry ARIMP (ATA/IATA Reservations Interline Message Procedures) standards, ticket number notification message (TKNE) regarding an infant electronic ticket must contain adult information when it is sent to the carriers. With this enhancement in Abacus System, the adult information will be sent to the carriers as long as there is an adult in the passenger name record. If the passenger name record contains solely an infant, electronic ticket issuance will be prohibited.

“Even though not all airlines can support electronic ticketing for infants today, those airlines that are able to support this function may choose to impose a surcharge on the paper tickets issued for infants. This upgrade will eliminate the need to issue paper tickets for infants whilst at the same time reducing airlines’ costs in phasing out paper tickets,” said See-Toh Hon Chew, Vice President, Air Content Associates at Abacus International.

This E-ticketing enhancement is an important step forward in supporting IATA’s initiatives to convert all member airlines to electronic ticketing by 2007,” said See-Toh Hon Chew. 

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