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Star Alliance
has launched its global interline e-ticket product. Following an extensive testing
schedule, interline e-ticket is now being rolled out across the member carriers. Air Canada and Lufthansa was the
first pair to launch in November. ANA and United are coming online this month, with Air Canada and Air New
Zealand due in January.
All other e-ticket pairings will become live as part of the Star Allince global interline e-ticket roll out, which will be
completed by the end of August 2005. At that point customers can travel across the entire Star Alliance Network
using one single e-ticket.
From a technical standpoint, all the information contained on a paper
ticket is stored in an electronic form in an airline's e-ticket database. The crucial part is exchanging this e-ticket information with other airline systems,
through an agreed message format. Using the Star Alliance infrastructure, StarNet, one single standard has been
developed for exchanging e-ticket information between the individual member carrier's systems. The advantage
of this, versus individual bilateral links, is that new members or changes in the system can be integrated more
easily and quickly.
With interline electronic ticketing, frequent fliers no longer have to worry about waiting for tickets to arrive by
post, queuing to collect tickets at a counter, nor can tickets get lost. Furthermore traveling on e-tickets also
speeds up check-in and boarding.
For the member carriers, electronic ticketing allows them to lower distribution costs. According to IATA, ticketing
costs for a paper ticket average between seven and nine US dollars, whereas an electronic ticket only averages
two US dollars.
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