Six airliners delay shared ticketing

JAKARTA (JP): Tough discussions among the country's six airlines are likely to delay until next year the introduction of the domestic air ticketing system, which will allow passengers to fly with any airline once they have bought a ticket.

Chairman of the Indonesian Air Carriers Association (Inaca), Soelarto Hadisumarto, said yesterday that a series of discussions have been held regularly since the six airlines signed an agreement last November to start issuing endorsable tickets this year.

The six domestic airlines involved in the endorsable ticket project are Garuda Indonesia, Merpati Nusantara Airlines, Bouraq Indonesia, Mandala Airlines, Sempati Air and Dirgantara Air Service. The idea of endorsable ticketing was initially introduced about two years ago to end the "price war" among the air carriers.

In November 1995, the airlines agreed to start issuing endorsable tickets this year, realizing that there would be a number of details in the discussions subject to approval.

Soelarto said yesterday that many details still have to be discussed before the agreement can be implemented. "The target is that endorsable tickets will be available in October," he said.

He admitted that Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto had also asked Inaca several times about the availability of endorsable tickets.

According to Soelarto, the six airlines have set up five working groups to discuss dozens of items to avoid disruption to the airline business after the introduction of the endorsable ticketing system.

Issues currently under discussion include plans on rules on the validity of endorsable tickets, baggage handling, insurance arrangements, accounting systems, documentation and billing.

Aviation analysts, however, are skeptical that the project can be introduced this year.

They say that since the airlines still have the opportunity to issue their own non-endorsable tickets for exceptional circumstances, the price war will never end.

Endorsable tickets, to be sold only by travel agents, cannot be discounted, so their prices will be higher than non-endorsable ones.

The analysts said that any violators of the agreement should be sanctioned by a regulating body.

As an attempt to reduce airfare discounting in Indonesia, the six airlines also signed an agreement in 1994 on the limitation of fare discounting. That agreement threatens any violator with a fine of Rp 10 million (US$4,262). Despite the agreement, which is sanctioned by Inaca, passengers are still able to enjoy discounts. (icn)