A world of paperless ticketing is edging one step closer as Travelport announces it has reduced the number of tickets by 13% in the past three weeks, and is on target to meeting IATA’s mandate of 100% electronic ticketing by June 1, 2008.Travelport GDS maintains the industry’s leadership role in enabling airlines and agencies to go paperless, and 95% of Travelport tickets are issued globally across Galileo, Apollo and Worldspan are electronic, and over 6,273 interline e-ticketing agreements for airlines are supported.

Travelport is also a leader in providing Interchange services to airlines around the world. The Interchange is a total solution which facilitates interline e-ticketing industry-wide. Airlines have immediate access to all carriers and ground handlers, representing over 20 different electronic ticketing systems, whose interline e-ticket messages are processed through the Interchange.

The interline electronic ticketing (IET) infrastructure built into the Interchange removes technology barriers by allowing any electronic ticket-enabled airline to easily, quickly and cost-effectively connect with their interline partners.

The design, infrastructure and value of the Interchange offers airlines, ground handlers and their IET partners the most advanced and efficient global e-ticketing platform, including EDIFACT message translation to serve airlines holding IET agreements with other carriers and ground handlers. 

“Travelport’s industry leading e-ticketing technologies including the Interchange are helping carriers worldwide to meet the IATA mandate with cost-effective solutions,” said Sue Powers, CIO, Travelport GDS. “Our innovative approach and highly acclaimed technology solutions place us as the leader in e-ticketing for the travel industry.”

The Interchange manages more than 50% of the airline industry’s worldwide interline agreements providing scalable technology solutions that support global and low-fare carriers such as Northwest and AirTran and IT service providers such as SITA and Navitaire.

“Travelport has been an invaluable partner since September 2004, providing e-ticket database and interline e-ticket technology for over 70 of our hosted airlines and ground handlers. They’ve supported SITA’s growth by providing innovative tools and solutions to help us prepare our customers for the IATA 100% e-ticketing mandate - including scalability that meets the needs of our biggest and smallest carriers and the flexibility to respond very quickly, on occasion completing an Interline e-ticket connection via their hub in less than a day,” said Brian Cook, vice president, Airline and Passenger Solutions, SITA.

“Northwest Airlines and Travelport partnered together on the Interchange,” said Jackie Astleford, director, E-Commerce and E-Services, Northwest Airlines.  “Northwest was the first carrier to use the Interchange. This allowed Northwest Airlines to quickly become the first to reach 100 IETs with other carriers, an area that Northwest continues to lead the industry in.”

www.travelportgds.com
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