AMERICAN AIRLINES EXPANDS ELECTRONIC TICKETING OFFERINGS

American Airlines makes electronic ticketing even more appealing to travel agents and their clients today by introducing the ability to handle more complex travel itineraries.

American is expanding its electronic ticketing product and offering agents for the first time the ability to electronically ticket itineraries with between five and 16 segments. Trips with more than four segments previously required a paper ticket.

"We’re again expanding the convenience associated with electronic ticketing," said Mike Gunn, American’s executive vice president of marketing. "This new service offers more opportunities for even more customers to use new airport technologies like self-service check-in devices. It also offers additional capabilities for travel agents and further reduces the strain on our environment by eliminating paperwork on several fronts."

Today’s announcement comes just two weeks after American first enabled travel agents using Sabre and Apollo computer reservations systems in the United States to electronically exchange and refund American Airlines electronic tickets, reducing paperwork and enhancing their back office accounting capabilities. Travel agents subscribing to the Amadeus or Worldspan computer reservation systems had this capability previously.

Also in January, travel agencies and other distributors using the Worldspan computer reservations system in Germany and the United Kingdom began offering electronic ticketing for itineraries on American and American Eagle. Similar partners in Mexico using either Worldspan or Apollo also gained the same capability.

This brings Eticket to a total of 12 countries where agencies can offer this increasingly popular product.