OREANDA-NEWS. On 10 July 2008 was announced, that Air Astana, Central Asia’s largest carrier, will revolutionize its management of passenger services with an automated ticket change solution provided by Amadeus, the leading technology and distribution partner to the travel and tourism industry.

Air Astana selected the Amadeus Ticket Changer (ATC) product after an exhaustive and detailed evaluation. With this agreement, Air Astana will ensure that its customers save time and airline sales agent avoids mistakes, even when the passenger has complex ticket changes. Amadeus Ticket Changer completely automates the time-consuming and complicated ticket change process and can help save as much as 80% of the time required to change a ticket. It can be used to re-issue any type of ticket, domestic or international, un-flown and party flown, past-date, online, interline, class / date / flight before/ after departure. It immediately calculates the price difference and relevant information in the currency required, enabling sales agents to instantly issue the new ticket in an efficient and secure manner. By processing fares, taxes and penalty fees in an end-to-end automated process, airlines ensure an accurate process to collect expected revenues.

The system simplifies the change ticket process from 14 complex steps to 4 easy entries reducing the average time for re-issue from 30 to 5 minutes. Another advantage is that ATC is estimated to save approximately 160USD (130EUR) per reissued ticket. The originality of this solution is the opportunity to work with any currency in any country, point of sale through any channel.

“Amadeus Ticket Changer confirms our commitment to providing effective technology solutions to the airline industry, helping companies to improve processes and offer better customer service, said Frйdйric Spagnou, Vice-President, Airline Business Group, Amadeus. “We are very pleased with the substantial uptake in recent months, and the plans we have for 2008 demonstrate our belief in the valuable role this solution can play in the industry.”

According to Ashendra Liyanage, Vice President Sales & Marketing, for Central Asia’s largest airline, Air Astana: “ATC will enable us to offer an enhanced service to our customers, providing them with flexibility and a wider variety of options when rebooking their travel. One out of every ten tickets we issue are subject to a ticket change, so this is an important service issue. ATC will allow us to transform what used to be a complicated and cumbersome technical procedure into what is now a very quick and efficient sales and service process”.

In the course of 2008, Air Astana will add a number of new functions to the existing product, such as the ATC Schedule Driven option, which will offer ticket change options to the airlines’ customers on Air Astana website.

Amadeus Ticket Changer is completely integrated with the fares and ticketing processes in Amadeus' Altйa Customer Management Solution (CMS) and used throughout multiple distribution channels, including the online channel.