Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Perry Kaande
20 May 2008
Harare — AIR Zimbabwe will save at least US$3 billion annually once it fully adopts the e-ticketing system.
It has until May 31 to meet the International Air Transport Association's 100 percent electronic ticketing deadline, with an official saying the airline was on schedule to meet it.
He said the carrier would reduce costs and widen its revenue base on the back of the full compliance.
"We will continue incurring huge costs using the paper ticketing system. Hundred percent compliance would reduce our costs, considering that it costs US$10 to produce a paper ticket as opposed to US$1 for an e-ticket," the official told Herald Business yesterday.
The official indicated that e-ticketing would also bring the airline to par with other international couriers that have already moved away from the conventional ticketing system saying, "other airlines are not accepting paper tickets and we would be limited to working in our own network which in turn limits revenue."
The airline official pointed out that whether Airzim complied or not would not have any implications on IATA membership.
Air Zimbabwe, in line with IATA industry priority of "Simplifying the Business", has over the past nine months made significant progress in electronic ticketing.
An electronic ticket is a paperless ticket, which is captured in the passengers booking and resides in the airline's system.
At the point of sale a receipt is generated which carries the passenger's itinerary and booking reference number.
A passenger simply presents his identification or passport at check-in and is automatically processed.
The air transporter began issuing e-tickets in August last year and at the current 80 percent compliance, the airline has to date issued over 40 000 e-tickets.
The e-tickets' convenience would also allow passengers to make changes to itineraries over the phone rather than in person at the airline's sales offices or travel agents.
Passengers can access their e-tickets anywhere and any time.
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To be able to save U.S.$3billion (U.S.$9 per ticket, as you state), AirZim needs to sell 7,5 times as many airline tickets as the most popular company in the world. Instead of talking of U.S. $, you ought to write ZIM$$$.