IATA honors Kenya Airways for promoting e-ticketing

Kenya Airways (KQ) has won accolades from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for its role in promoting e-ticketing by airlines in East Africa.

KQ is now 90 percent e-ticket compliant and hopes to be fully compliant by end of the financial year, said Kevin Kinyanjui, the airline's IT director. The remaining 10 percent of tickets are issued on paper in countries that are not yet e-ticket compliant, he explained.

The airline embraced e-ticketing in January 2005, and travel agents in the region stopped issuing paper tickets on June 1 of this year. Currently, KQ has 43 e-eligible destinations, 66 e-interline partners, 30 e-infant partners and e-interline agreements with eight Global Distribution Systems.

In recognition, IATA awarded KQ with a Last Paper Award plaque, engraved with the words "100 per cent ET is now a reality. Thank you for helping us make history."

IATA launched its e-ticketing campaign in June 2004 as a way of simplifying business dealings. The program has eliminated about 300 million paper tickets from the industry, saving member airlines approximately US$3 billion annually.