Through Ticketing Research

Summary: In early 2008 North Star Consultancy conducted research on Through Ticketing. The key objectives were to find out more about attitudes to Through Ticketing in the air-rail sector (including technology providers) and to report back these findings to interested colleagues the industry. This research was focused on the Airport Express railways globally and achieved a 50% response rate.

It was found that some operators were selling their rail tickets in-flight and along side airlines at the point of booking the airline ticket. However, only a few are working with Global Distribution Systems (GDS’s).

Interestingly, sales volumes via GDS’s are low, accounting on average, for only 4% of total rail sales for each participating operator. A number of potential barriers to the successful introduction of Through Ticketing were mentioned; in our opinion many of these can be overcome. One European operator does have a very unique e-ticketing based system which is an extremely slick process for the customer. They reported that 47% of their sales come via this route. However, affiliations with the travel trade and/or any external sales channels are a very small percentage of its overall business. One would question the worldwide reach of this strategy.

All operators agreed that Through Ticketing was good for the customer and it was identified that there is scope to do a lot more.
Overall, the research revealed that there are many concerns about technical integration. Each service should consider its particular needs and North Star actively encourages best practice exchange.