Several multiplexes are already offering mobile ticketing in India. Bharti Airtel Ltd in association with TravelGuru kicked off EasyTravel for Airtel customers in Karnataka – a new channel for flight booking using mobile phones. I tested the SMS part of the service and it works pretty good. Infact I noticed several cheaper deals for a flight from Bangalore to Delhi on 10 DEC than the amount I paid to my travel agent for flight on the same day.
EasyTravel service is not available for low cost airlines. To search for available flights, just send an SMS to 500 in the following format FLY [Source] [Destination] [Date], FLY BLR DEL 10 DEC. You will receive couple of SMS’ showing the availability. Ex. JT-09:30-4350. Then you have to send another SMS with FLY and flight details from the SMS received earlier. A booking agent will get in touch with you to complete the booking or you can immediately call them. Hopefully, one of these mobile ISVs will eliminate the booking agent part when it unveils the Mobile Pay paving way for true m-commerce in India.
Update: Received an e-mail asking what was JT-09:30-4350? ( Jet airways departing at 9:30 will cost Rs4350)
The same solution has been running on 4242 and 6858 for jhutch customers for a year, Travelguru has done a good job at copying it, hope they keep copying us.. to keep us as leaders.
i would not completely agree that this is M-Commerce as there is not payment taken from the mobile device.
i would call it “Mobile Fare Search with offline payment collection” model
But, nevertheless a good start to the whole m-commerce initiative in the country.
IVR and WAP products should do the trick for a complete transaction including payment, passenger details and PNR generation.
sir i want to knw the flight information between mumbai to jamshedpur