Six airliners delay shared ticketing
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)