OREANDA-NEWS. On March 15, 2007 Russian national aviation carrier JSC "Aeroflot-Russian Airlines" has started using the interline e-ticketing with its SkyTeam alliance partners: Aeromexico, Continental, Korean Air, KLM, Delta, reported the press-centre of  JSC "Aeroflot-Russian Airlines". This means beginning of mutual sales of e-tickets for the flights being offered by the above companies and commencement of servicing of those passengers having e-tickets.

In second quarter of 2007 it is planned to introduce interline e-ticketing procedures with the reminder of the company's SkyTeam partners: Alitalia, Air France, CSA, Northwest, as well with associated members of the alliance. As the corresponding technical means are in place, the interline e-ticketing programs will be implemented into cooperation programs with other foreign aviation carriers. Aeroflot is the one and only aviation company in Russia capable to offer this kind of services. In consideration of currently available legislation, launching of full scale e-ticketing through www.aeroflot.ru web site and JSC "Aeroflot" own ticketing offices in Russia is expected to be accomplished in June 2007. Aeroflot's foreign agents will be able to offer e-tickets already in this April. As it was earlier announced, under requirement of IATA and starting from January 1, 2008 all aviation companies should switch their ticketing operations on the e-ticketing procedure. On January 24 the Ministry of Justice of Russian Federation has coordinated and approved the Order of the Ministry of Transport of Russian Federation No. 134 dated November 8, 2006 "About establishing of the form of electronic passengers tickets and luggage receipt for civil aviation", which served as the basis for adoption of e-tickets as the aviation transport document.

Currently Aeroflot is extensively developing its services with regard to the web-booking, credit card payments, self-registration of the passengers through the airport terminals. Starting from early 2007, 19 thousand tickets for totally $8 million have been purchased through Aeroflot's web-site. All Aeroflot destination and departure airports are being equipped with corresponding hardware and software enabling processing of e-tickets and transit through registration. E-ticket is an additional and convenient instrument allowing passengers to save their time in purchasing the tickets, and enabling full scale operation of web-sales and web-booking, the most rapidly growing segments of the world aviation market. Implementation of this services in our country provides Russian aviation companies with equal competitive positions on the international lines, where e-ticket is widely spread. Implementation of e-ticketing in Russia facilitates more efficient cooperation within the "interline" and "code-sharing" agreements, creates additional prerequisites for wide scale participation in various global industrial development processes.