Travel Agency & Ticketing

Airline Ticketing
Tasnuba Khanom Tasnim
Roll - 556712, 6th semester, 2nd shift
Subject code: 69961

An airline ticket is a document granted by a carrier or travel agency to a passenger as a confirmation that a person has
bought a seat on a flight. It can exist in two forms — paper and electronic (e-ticket).

The air ticket performs several important functions such as -

● It seals the deal between a passenger and an airline, establishing rights and responsibilities on both
sides. The ticket documents whether and under what conditions a passenger can modify an itinerary,
cancel a flight, or receive a refund.
● It serves as a travel document, ensuring that an airline will provide a seat and services included in the
fare for a ticket owner. On the other hand, carriers use a document as a source of information about the
passenger and the booking.
● It manages relationships between multiple airlines involved in one journey (if this is the case). To be
more precise, it outlines the responsibilities of the validating carrier which issued the ticket and the
operating carrier or carriers which perform the flight.

1. Passenger Reservation For Air Ticketing: Airline reservation systems (ARS) are systems that
allow an airline to sell their inventory (seats). It contains information on schedules and fares and
contains a database of reservations (or passenger name records) and of tickets issued (if applicable).
Airline reservation systems incorporate airline schedules, fare tariffs, passenger reservations and
ticket records. An airline's direct distribution works within their own reservation system, as well as
pushing out information to the GDS.

The second type of direct distribution channel are consumers who use the internet or mobile
applications to make their own reservations. Travel agencies and other indirect distribution channels
access the same GDS as those accessed by the airline reservation systems, and all messaging is
transmitted by a standardised messaging system that functions on two types of messaging that
transmit on SITA's high level network (HLN).
Since airline reservation systems are business critical applications, and they are functionally quite
complex, the operation of an in-house airline reservation system is relatively expensive.
 Prior to deregulation, airlines owned their own reservation systems with travel agents subscribing to
them. Today, the GDS are run by independent companies with airlines and travel agencies being major
subscribers.
2. Inventory Management: In the airline industry, available seats are commonly referred to as
inventory. The inventory of an airline is generally classified into service classes (e.g. economy,
premium economy, business or first class) and any number of fare classes, to which different prices
and booking conditions may apply.

Fare classes are complicated and vary from airline to airline, often indicated by a one letter code. The
meaning of these codes are not often known by the passenger, but conveys information to airline staff,
for example they may indicate that a ticket was fully paid, or discounted or purchased through a loyalty
scheme, etc. Some seats may not be available for open sale, but reserved for example for connecting
flight or loyalty scheme passengers. Overbooking is also a common practice, and is an exception to
inventory management principles. One of the core functions of inventory management is inventory
control. Inventory control monitors how many seats are available in the different fare classes, and by
opening and closing individual fare classes for sale.

A flight schedule management system forms the foundation of the inventory management system.
Besides other functions, it is critical for ticket sales, crew member assignments, aircraft maintenance,
airport coordination, and connections to partner airlines. The schedule system monitors what and
when aircraft will be available on particular routes, and their internal configuration. Inventory data is
imported and maintained from the schedule distribution system. Changes to aircraft availability would
immediately impact the available seats of the fleet, as well as the seats which had been sold.
3. Availability Display and Reservation(PNR): Users access an airline's inventory through an
availability display. It contains all offered flights for a particular city-pair with their available seats in
the different booking classes. This display contains flights which are operated by the airline itself as
well as code share flights which are operated in cooperation with another airline. If the city pair is not
one on which the airline offers service, it may display a connection using its own flights or display the
flights of other airlines.

The availability of seats of other airlines is updated through standard industry interfaces. Depending
on the type of cooperation, it supports access to the last seat (last seat availability) in real-time.
Reservations for individual passengers or groups are stored in a so-called passenger name record
(PNR).

Among other data, the PNR contains personal information such as name, contact information or
special services requests (SSRs) e.g. for a vegetarian meal, as well as the flights (segments) and issued
tickets. Some reservation systems also allow storing customer data in profiles to avoid data re-entry
each time a new reservation is made for a known passenger. In addition, most systems have interfaces
to CRM systems or customer loyalty applications (aka frequent traveller systems).

Before a flight departs, the so-called passenger name list (PNL) is handed over to the departure control
system that is used to check-in passengers and baggage. Reservation data such as the number of
booked passengers and special service requests is also transferred to flight operations systems, crew
management and catering systems. Once a flight has departed, the reservation system is updated with
a list of the checked-in passengers (e.g. passengers who had a reservation but did not check in (no
shows) and passengers who checked in, but did not have a reservation (go shows)).
 4. Fare Quote and Ticketing: The Fares data store contains fare tariffs, rule sets, routing maps, class
of service tables, and some tax information that construct the price – "the fare". Rules like booking
conditions (e.g. minimum stay, advance purchase, etc.) are tailored differently between different city
pairs or zones, and assigned a class of service corresponding to its appropriate inventory bucket.
Inventory control can also be manipulated manually through the availability feeds, dynamically
controlling how many seats are offered for a particular price by opening and closing particular classes.

Issuing of Air Tickets Through using Automated System:

There are basically three types of tickets which are :

1. Manual Ticketing: An airline ticket carries out three major functions. These are:An authorization to
travel, An evidence of the fare and amount paid.
● Cover Sheet: The cover sheet remains attached at all times to the ticket booklet.
● Notice of incorporated terms which advise the passengers about the airline's responsibility.
Auditors coupon which is a green coloured coupon in case the agency uses. Report In case the
agency reports sales electronically through the CRS, the agency may opt to destroy the auditors
coupon or keep at the agency.
●
● Flight coupons where each coupon is numbered and these buff coloured coupons remain in the
ticket booklet and are given to the passenger. For each flight one flight coupon is required on
the passengers itinerary.
●
● In case all the flight coupons are not needed, they can be marked as void. Void coupons can be
either destroyed or best applied with the agent's coupon. Before boarding an airline agent
removes and keeps the coupon that is applicable to the flight being boarded.
● Passenger receipt is the white copy that remains in the booklet

2. Automated Airline Ticket: These tickets are generally issued by the principal carrier and its ticket
format consists of valid flight coupons and passenger receipts. There are two portions in this ticket
which are flight coupons and passenger coupons. The passenger coupon can be used as a boarding pass
both separated by perforation on the same coupon.
Automated tickets and boarding passes are produced in the form of multi coupons with the help of
specialised air ticket printers which have now become quite popular. This was the time when
multi-layered carbonised copies were phased out. The new tickets incorporate a magnetic strip that
enables coupons to be passed through electronic readers that facilitates speedy check-in procedures.
3. Steps of Ticketing: The passenger has to provide the details of the origin of the journey, the
destination where he has to reach, the date of travel and the type of passenger i.e Adult, children,
infant etc. The system automatically takes these parameters and applies the following steps:
● Routing the journey: It is important because the number of possible routes can be many
between the origin and destination, based on how much is the distance between both the
destination, the number of intermediate airports between both the destination,etc.
● Therefore, the first step is to plan possible routes between the origin and the destination. A
route is basically a potential way of getting from the origin to the destination via other airports.
● Planning Schedule: Once routes are finalised, the flight schedule is decided between the origin
and the first intermediate airport. This planning of the schedule gives a clear picture about the
flights that the customer can travel. At this step, many routes may get eliminated since there
may not be any viable flights for those routes.
● Availability of seats: Once data for the flight is available, the availability of seats on the flights
can be found out. Many schedules may get eliminated at this level.