Airline ticketing is not as simple as passengers may believe. It is a complicated process involving numerous systems, interactions, and regulations. This article will explain how ticketing works, what a ticket is, what accreditations an agency needs to issue tickets, and how to sell flight seats without major certifications.
What exactly is an airline ticket?
An airline ticket is a document issued by a carrier or travel agency to a passenger as confirmation that a seat on a flight has been purchased. It is available in two formats: paper and electronic (e-ticket). Today, you'll almost certainly be dealing with a digital version, with hard copies becoming museum artifacts.
The air ticket, in whatever form it takes, serves several important functions.
- It formalizes the agreement between a passenger and an airline, establishing both parties' rights and responsibilities. The ticket specifies whether and under what circumstances a passenger can change his or her itinerary, cancel a flight, or receive a refund.
- It functions as a travel document, guaranteeing that an airline will provide a seat and services included in the fare for the ticket holder. Carriers, on the other hand, use documents as a source of information about the passenger and the booking.
- It manages the relationships of multiple airlines involved in a single journey (if this is the case). To be more specific, it defines the roles of the validating carrier that issued the ticket and the operating carrier or carriers that performed the flight.
When it comes to flights operated by multiple airlines, only one has a ticket at any given time. This ownership makes the airline responsible for the passenger and their status updates (checked-in, boarded, flown, etc.)
The booking of airline tickets
The final stage of the complex flight booking process is airline ticketing. Because everything moves so smoothly and quickly, it may appear as a single flow to a passenger who purchases the flight through a website. In reality, there are three distinct steps, each with multiple procedures.
Flight lookup
The first step is to search for flights on various platforms, such as airline websites, online travel agencies, or metasearch engines.
Websites for airlines. When a passenger searches for a flight on an airline's website, the query is routed directly to the carrier's central reservation system (CRS), with no involvement from third parties. For required dates, the CRS returns a list of available options. It's very simple and straightforward! However, more often than not, the options will be limited to flights operated by a single airline and its partners.
Travel agencies that operate online. Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) are what you need if you want to compare offers from multiple airlines or plan a multi-leg itinerary. Flight information is obtained from Global Distribution Systems (GDSs), air consolidators, and partner carriers. Before displaying airfare deals to end users, most OTAs use booking engine technology to prioritize results based on business rules and apply pricing markups.
Meta-search engines Platforms such as Google Flights and Skyscanner aggregate data from OTAs and airline CRSs to present the most comprehensive set of options possible, including those from low-cost carriers that typically do not share their flights with GDSs (and consequently, with OTAs.) However, metasearch engines do not typically support booking. Instead, they direct the user to the airline's or OTA's website.
Booking a flight
The second step is to make a reservation. When a passenger chooses a flight, the retailer — whether an airline website or an OTA — checks with the CRS to see if the option is still available at the same price. Then it gathers traveler information to create a Passenger Name Record (PNR). This digital document, which is stored in the CRS, contains critical information about the itinerary in question.
When a passenger enters all required information, the system generates a booking reference — a unique code that serves as the address of the PNR file in the CRS and confirms the reservation. Travelers are emailed such codes, which they can use to track their flight status, change itinerary details, add ancillaries, or cancel their trip.
Ticketing
The PNR is insufficient to enable ticketing. Travelers must still pay to complete the transaction. Payment gateways — third-party services that process electronic transactions and ensure data security — are used by both airlines and OTAs for this purpose. Nowadays, most passengers pay for their flights immediately after entering all of their booking information.
Though the bank holds the funds on your credit card the moment you book a trip, it can take up to three days to verify payment details, confirm the transaction, and determine whether or not the seat is still available (yes, one more time.) That is why there is a time lag between making a reservation (when you receive a PNR number) and purchasing a ticket.
When a payment is confirmed, the corresponding fare information is added to the PNR document. This particular record is used to issue tickets.
The itinerary receipt is eventually emailed to the passenger. This document certifies that an e-ticket was successfully purchased. You can print it several times or save it to any device. The e-ticket is saved in the airline's reservation system.
However, the receipt does not allow you to board the plane. You must check in — either online or at the airport — and receive a boarding pass (printed or electronic) generated by the airline's departure control system before you can board the flight.
What information is contained on an e-ticket itinerary receipt?
The itinerary receipt contains all necessary information about air travel, allowing passengers to manage their travel, go through a check-in procedure, and simply keep important details about the journey on hand. And, while the structure and design of the document differ from one airline to the next, the data is typically divided into the following logical sections.
Information on passengers and tickets
The passenger and ticket information section displays the passenger's name, frequent flyer code, e-ticket number, booking reference (PNR code), and who and when issued the ticket.
The 13-digit e-ticket number is a one-of-a-kind identifier associated with a specific passenger and flight, and it is never reused. The first three digits are an IATA airline code that tells us who issued the ticket. For example, 125 denotes British Airways and 176 denotes Emirates. The following ten digits are a serial number.
The booking reference is made up of six characters, which can be letters or numbers. A special algorithm generates the code in order to create a one-of-a-kind combination.
A ticker number and a booking code can both be used to retrieve itinerary information, manage a booking, and check in for a flight.
Information on Travel
The flight information section begins with a flight number, which is a combination of an IATA 2-letter airline identifier (for example, LH stands for Lufthansa) and a route number of up to 4 digits. Delta Air Lines, for example, operates flight DL318 from Boston to Seattle.
In addition, the section covers departure and arrival times, dates, airports, and, on occasion, terminals. If you see +1 near the arrival time, it means you'll arrive at your destination the next day after leaving. You can also find your flight class and baggage allowance — or the maximum weight and size of bags allowed to check for free — on this page.
Fares and additional information
The fare and additional information section specifies the fare, fees, and taxes, as well as the method of payment. It also provides a brief summary of the refund and cancellation policy that applies to the specific ticket — whether and under what conditions you can get a refund.
IATA and ARC are the primary ticketing accreditations.
Ticketing is a complicated and highly regulated process. Airlines want to know that they will be paid for their seats. As a result, large organizations emerged to handle transactions between carriers and distributors (travel agencies, travel management companies, and others). To sell tickets on behalf of airlines, the latter must obtain special accreditation. Globally, such licenses are granted by two large organizations: the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC).
IATA BSP for travel agencies outside of the United States
IATA, which was founded in 1945 in Cuba and is now headquartered in Canada, is the world's largest airline association, with 290 member airlines in 120 countries. Among other things, it oversees the Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP), an internal payment processing system that collects money from all travel sellers and distributes it to airlines. It provides a secure method for ticketing parties to control financial operations.
Only IATA-certified travel agencies outside the United States can access BSP and issue tickets on behalf of member airlines.
ARC for travel sellers based in the United States
The Airlines Reporting Corporation has been in operation in the United States since 1985 and currently includes 230 airlines and 10,700 travel agencies. It, like IATA, uses its own payment processor to mediate financial transactions between agents and airlines. To issue tickets for its member airlines, all companies registered in the United States or its territories must have an ARC certificate.
The choice of accreditation for a company attempting to perform ticketing will be determined by whether it is based in the United States or not. However, large travel companies frequently have both ARC and IATA accreditations to validate their credibility.
Ticketing for low-cost carriers
The ticketing model described thus far refers to full-service carriers (FSC), which provide assigned seats, checked baggage, on-board meals and beverages, in-flight entertainment, and other services and comforts. The majority of FSCs are IATA/ARC members who distribute their inventory through Global Distribution Systems. However, this is almost never the case with low-cost carriers (LCCs.)
LCCs reduce flight costs by offering a bare fare with no extras, flying from secondary airports, and relying on direct online distribution rather than expensive GDS mediation. What about ticketing, though? Though some LCCs sign agreements with ARC/BSP, the majority of them avoid this type of membership and the associated fees.
LCCs combine booking and ticketing in a single step by eliminating middlemen. When an airline charges a fee for a flight, it returns a reference number that passengers can use to view and change their booking (for example, to add extra services or cancel their trip), check-in online, and retrieve a boarding pass. As a result, no ticket is issued.
If regular e-ticketing is not an option, travel agencies can still book and ticket LCC flights for their clients via GDS.
Model of light ticketing This model is available through Amadeus GDS from several LCCs, including
easyJet (UK), Jet2.com (UK), KLM-owned Transavia (Netherlands), AirAsia (Malaysia), Spring Airlines (China), and Eurowings (Germany) all support both e-ticketing and light ticketing.
The light ticketing flow is similar to the regular ticketing flow, but it does not include IATA/ARC payment mediators. Instead, the carrier deducts funds from a passenger's credit card. After the airline generates a booking confirmation number, the GDS provides flight information to a travel agent, who then issues an itinerary receipt and sends it to the end consumer. Light tickets, unlike e-tickets, are not reported to BSP/ARC.
However, no changes, cancellations, or refunds are possible through Amadeus in this scenario. The travel agent must contact the airline for all of these operations.
Model with no tickets. This option is similar to the previous one, except a travel agent does not provide a receipt. An LCC's inventory is displayed in the GDS, and a retailer who books it provides a passenger's payment information and email address. Once the payment has been verified, the airline will send the passenger flight information.
Ticketing without the use of IATA or ARC
Small travel agencies, like low-cost carriers, cannot afford to join large associations such as IATA or ARC. To book a flight, they must work with a certified organization that will handle the problem for a reasonable fee. Potential ticketing partners fall into two categories.
Airline consolidators are wholesalers who buy flight inventory in bulk at a discount and then resell it to retailers at a premium per ticket. Travel agencies that work with air consolidators can use their credentials to access the GDS and purchase tickets. Furthermore, such collaboration allows agents to gain access to a diverse range of airfares, both private and published.
Host agencies act as go-betweens for limited-resource travel retailers and travel suppliers. To book travel products and issue airline tickets, all companies operating under the same host agency use the same credentials.
The Future of Ticketing
Today, a single booking flow generates three separate documents: a PNR, an e-ticket, and an electronic miscellaneous record (EMR) that collects and tracks information about service fees and ancillary payments. In the coming years, IATA plans to introduce ONE Order, an XML standard that will combine all of those files into a single one with a unified reference number.
This initiative aims to simplify the booking process for travel agents, facilitate data exchange between airlines, and improve passenger experience by eliminating the need for passengers to juggle multiple numbers and codes to manage their journey.
