TravelSky Extends Commitment to Travelport’s E-Ticket Technology

TravelSky, a leading provider of information technology solutions for the People’s Republic of China’s air travel and tourism industry, and the only GDS licensed in mainland China to make reservations for all airlines, has renewed its commitment to Travelport, extending an agreement for the Travelport E-Ticket Interchange system and its interline e-ticketing (IET) capabilities. TravelSky has been a Travelport customer for 15 years.

The TravelSky Technology unit operates the reservations and departure control systems for air carriers in China, and also maintains the global distribution system for China's travel agencies. TravelSky processes more than 200 million passengers a year in a rapidly growing travel market. Its customers include 30 domestic airlines and nearly 200 regional and international airlines, 147 domestic airports and 7,000 ticket agents, broadening its service range into 300 cities in China, 80 overseas cities and into social networking sites.

Travelport’s E-Ticket Interchange offers travel industry organisations and airlines an advanced global e-ticketing message switching platform. It performs interactive message translation and switching functions between airline partners for interline e-ticketing, as well as both interactive and control methods for ground handling.

Airlines have immediate access to all carriers and ground handlers, representing over 20 different electronic ticketing systems, whose interline e-ticket messages are processed through the Interchange. The interline electronic ticketing (IET) infrastructure built into the Interchange removes technology barriers by allowing any electronic ticket- enabled airline to easily, quickly and cost-effectively connect with their interline partners.

Supporting IT infrastructure in China must offer cost-efficient processing solutions to support mission critical functions such as interline e-ticketing (IET) and seamless message translation between partner airlines. The convenience of interline e-ticketing is a critical function in serving today’s travellers and helps to bring efficiency and worry free travel to TravelSky’s customers, while dramatically reducing interline electronic ticket (IET) activation costs and time to market for member carriers.

Travelport’s E-Ticket Interchange (IET) will provide TravelSky with access to more than 5,700 interline electronic ticketing connections, over 59 host systems, which includes in excess of 4,600 airline relationships and 1,150 ground handling relationships. Also, the E-Ticket Interchange performs interactive message translation and switching functions for interline e-ticketing, reducing activation costs and time to market while improving implementation efficiency.

Travelport has had a physical presence in China since 1996 with offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The company also has its Asia headquarters in Hong Kong.

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