E-Ticketing for airline tickets reservation is a growing up market. Everywhere around the world you will find more and more airline companies proposing this option via their website.
Some company such as AirAsia does not even give possibility to make your airline tickets reservation via travel agent. All the tickets must be bought via their website. Only e-ticketing is available. The reason is of course to cut cost for the flight ticket itself. According to the Air Transport Association (IATA), the application of e-ticketing can cost by up to U$9.00 per ticket. This reduction cost includes the paper itself and all human resource needed for the manual control of tickets.
This service is not only advantageous for the airline company, but for the passenger as well. You do not have to worry about losing your ticket. Present a simple ID card at the check-in counter is sufficient to get your boarding pass. This is a win-win situation.
Another way to reduce cost for low-cost carriers is the reduction of services, such as the cost of food served to passengers. The basic principles of low-cost carrier is that there are no paper tickets, no drinks, no meals, no headphones, no newspapers, no movies, no VIP lounges, etc.
The last and probably most important factor to reduce the cost in the Airline Company is to get the flight full booked as often as possible. They can achieve that with their low cost tickets of course, but also with a sophisticated online reservation program. To make sure that happens, they will increase the ticket price step by step closer you come to the date of departure. So, it will force passengers to order tickets more in advance and get full booked before their competitors. Yet, with some exceptions for the purchase of last minute tickets. In case the flight is already 99% full a week before the departure, I doubt you will be able to get any cheap tickets at the last minute. But if they still have more than ten seats available two days before the departure, you should be able to get a good deal as well. So the low-cost carrier company will always make sure their flights are full, otherwise they won't be able to keep their offers so competitive.
Monday, July 23, 2007
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