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Passengers of SriLankan Airlines, the country’s national
carrier, can now look forward to making their own airline
reservations with the newly introduced internet booking engine
from the privacy of their home, office or wherever an internet
connection is available.
The internet booking engine is a real time interface between
the airline’s reservation system and the passenger.
It allows passengers to search preferred dates, times, available
flights, check seat availability and reserve a seat by paying
through an accepted credit card.
“The essence of e-commerce is remoteness, and internet
booking engine together with e-ticketing allow passengers
seamless travel. The airline has developed this booking engine
after careful research to make it simple, safe, customer friendly
and convenient. There are only 6 steps involved in making
a confirmed reservation. The passenger is not confused by
too many screens, too many questions or options”, said
Nadarajah Prabhaharan, the Senior Commercial Operations Manager
at SriLankan.
As a further step in the streamlining process, the airline
has adopted the electronic ticketing system, or e-ticketing,
to 10 of its destinations making an actual paper ticket redundant.
Among these destinations are Delhi, Bombay, Chennai, Hong
Kong, Singapore and Dubai. By the end of the year SriLankan
hopes to extend this facility to all the destinations on its
network.
Explaining the concept of e-ticketing Mr Prabaharan stated,
“An airline ticket as we know it has all data pertaining
to the passenger’s travel recorded on it. If a passenger
loses this paper ticket a new ticket must be obtained incurring
additional cost, which invariably results in delays and inconvenience.
However with online booking and e-ticketing only a print out
the e-ticket confirmation page, a soft copy of which is stored
in your PC or laptop, is needed.”
With the introduction of these two advances in technology
to the national carrier, benefits to the passengers have increased
tremendously. Not only does a passenger have the freedom and
flexibility to select his preferred travel date, time, class,
meals but also provides a safe method to pay online, and obtain
a receipt (or print out) saving visits to banks, ticketing
offices and travel agents.
Since the passenger’s travel information is sent to
their email address, additional service requests or communication
could be done via email. Bonus Skywards miles can also be
accrued to redeem a vast array of frequent flyer benefits
.Passengers need not carry a document that can be lost, forgotten
or stolen.
The whole process from reserving the ticket to buying it
is made fast and efficient resulting in increased customer
satisfaction.
SriLankan Airlines, which has been expanding rapidly over
the last two years, now flies to 42 destinations in 23 countries
across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and has announced
plans to begin services to Beijing and several Indian destinations.
This summer’s schedule saw increasing frequencies to
South India, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Dammam and London.
In addition, SriLankan’s domestic Air Taxi service
with two amphibious Turbo Otter floatplanes has made it possible
to travel to any part of the country within one hour.
SriLankan was selected as the “Airline Turnaround of
the Year 2004”, by the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation
(CAPA) Australia. CAPA assesses the national carrier of Sri
Lanka as the Asia Pacific airline that emerged as the most
significant regional player by almost doubling its net profits,
achieving a substantial increase in international traffic
particularly to India, and announcing the launch of new destinations
in India and China. This is the latest among more than twenty
international awards SriLankan has won during the last three
years.
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