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Videcom Airline Internet Booking Engine Providing the ultimate online sales tool for airlines, the Videcom IBE is the result of over 50 airline implementations over an 8 year period. Now our IBE is one of the most mature products on the market with extensive features and robust architecture giving airlines the peace of mind that their online sales will increase month on month with passengers returning to book directly with such ease of use. The standard Internet Booking Engine is delilvered with the following features: - An unlimited number of languages may be supported in the booking engine allowing the airline content management to phase any copy within the pages as they wish.
- The look and feel of the booking engine can be completely customized to match the corporate branding of the airline.
- Click through referrals can be tracked through the booking flow to completion of booking and reports can be provided to show statistics
- Hit counters are provided across any date range
- A full tracking system is incorporated into all internet booking pages to show traffic statistics, including all referrals.
- Error messaging is programmable by the airline and the navigation follows the industry standard with transparency through the booking process
- Throughout the booking process there are help icons available on each data set to explain to the customer items which may not be understood.
- Any promotion may be displayed during loading time and this can be made dynamic.
- The system is fully tested across all browsers for cross browser support.
- Integration with corporate/promotional website
- A Flight Search panel is provided for the airline to place in an iframe within any page on their website to allow customers to make a search. When the search is made the page seamlessly redirects the session to the booking pages.
- Headers and footers are placed on the booking pages to give the same look and feel throughout the booing process.
- Dynamic menus may be used to provide enhanced navigational feel throughout the booking process.
- External content such as promotional banners and images may be placed throughout the booking process.
Internet Booking Engine with sector based fares Pioneered by the Low Cost Carriers over the last decade sector based fares are now common place and becoming the standard way of pricing across the airline industry. This type of pricing strategy is used to gain the maximum revenue per flight based on the number of seats sold. The principals of this model are: - The seats are first offered at a low price and as the flight sells out the price increases
- Sector fares are combined to give the total round trip price.
- Length of stay is not a consideration, only maximum revenue per flight.
- The sector price is visible to the customer allowing them to shop between flights to find the lower prices
- Allows the passenger to choose between an expensive flight (one that is getting full) on the dates required, or a cheaper flight (that is less full) on an alternative date.
- The actual revenue per flight is easily calculated, highlighting the highest and lowest revenue generating flights in the operation allowing the airline to squeeze maximum revenue.
Internet Booking Engine with traditional itinerary based fares This type of business model prices the flights based on the overall itinerary which is being considered and therefore cannot return a fare until all sectors of the booking have been selected. The prime reasons for requiring all sectors to return the fare quote are: - Different prices based on “length of stay” i.e. 1 month, 3 month, 12 month
- Advance purchase policies for cheaper fares
- The Sunday rule providing cheaper fares if staying over a weekend
- The sector price is not visible to the customer, only the total round trip price.
Most modern airlines including traditional national flag carriers as well as low cost carriers an regional airline are moving towards the modern sector based fares, however the system has been designed to equally cater for both types of fares and in fact some of our customers have a mix of these fare types depending upon the booking channel.
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Fully Integrated with your Corporate Website
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We give you the choice
The corporate and promotional pages of your website can either be hosted by Videcom as part of our integrated solution or we will work with a website provider of your choice and integrate the internet booking engine with the 3rd party pages.
Sometimes our airline customers prefer to work with a local website provider for the promotional pages of the website - our internet booking engine is then integrated with these pages to include content from both providers to be displayed on both sets of pages. For example Videcom hosted search forms and login areas can be displayed on the homepage which is hosted by a 3rd party. When the customer makes a search from the homepage the availability page is seemlessly displyed to them as if both pages where hosted together. Working in partnership to provide you with the best solution.
There are many different way to incorporate the Internet Booking Engine into your airline website and we provide the necessary project management and technical resources to enable your web developer to find the best solution. We also include tracking codes so that you can analyse the traffic flowing through the IBE and fine tune the booking process to achieve the maximum conversion rate from your visitors. We can also add Affiliate Tracking Tags so that your partners can earn commision from directing customers to your website using schemes from 3rd party marketing sites such as Pepper Jam and Commission Junction.
If you don't have the resources to build your own website and want to your our integrated solution we can work with you to produce a high quality ecommerce solution full intgrated with the Internet Booking Engine. With a full content management you can take control of pages and update them in real time whenever you need to.Read more about our Corporate Website Package
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There are multiple entry routes into the IBE including:
- New Public Internet Bookings - for vistors making new boookings without a profile
- Customer Sign-in, allowing customers to create a profile and edit their profiles.
- Customer Sign-in for registered customers to make bookings while signed-in
- Manage My Booking - for bookings that have already been made so that customers can change their flights, select meals and seats or check-in online
- Travel Agent Login for agents you have authorized and allowed to book with credit limits
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Availability and Prices
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You choose the layout and design, we'll give you the product...
In the airline world everyone wants to be different, thats why after providing Internet Bookings Engines to over 50 of the worlds airlines our product has become an extremley powerful tool allowing airlines to configure the pages and functions the way that they want to.
Specific Date Display. Fast and Simple.
Providing quick and easy visibility to the customer, this well designed layout provides a display of the flights and prices available on the exact day that the customer searched for. "Easy on the Eyes" the products are stacked vertically displaying the prices for different price bands and ticket flexibility to allow the customer to select the flights they want.
Low Fare Finder Calendar
For maximum shopability we've created the ultimate low fare finder. Providing a calendar at the top of the page which can be configured to display days of any date range, your passengers can see the lowest fare available on each day. When they select the day that their interested in the page displays all the flights avialable for that day together with all the products with different flexibility in one table. Setting the configuration of the calandar to +/- 14 days will dispaly very flight and every price you have across a month.
Fare Rules and Penalties
Configuration allows you to decide how much transparency to display. Fare rules can be diplayed on the page showing the flexibility of each product and if there are any penalties for changes or cancellations. Or you can decide not to show these at this stage if you prefer.
Promotional Codes
Promotional codes (Evouchers) can be used to offer special discounts to passengers. The code is entered when the search is made and the applicable discount is then displayed against the fare pricing giving a full break down of the cost with discount.
- Promotional codes may be used to provide a special discount from a normal fare.
- Single use only or multiple use codes may be set up.
- Valid by booking date range
- Valid by flight date range
- Fixed or percentage discounts
- Percentage discounts may be capped to a limit
- Multiple currency support
- Based on minimum and maximum number of passengers
- Specific discounts for return or one way trips
- Limited to specific RBD’s (fare codes) if required
Taxes and Charges
Taxes and Surcharges are automatically added to the fare to give a total price. As the customer selects different fares the totals at the bottom of the page are dynamically updated and a full break down of the fare, taxes and any discounts are clearly shown.
Read more about our Public Internet Booking Engine
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Ancillary Products |
Over the past few years airlines have realized the revenue potential of maximizing the sales of ancillary products with their flights. Providing the facility for your passengers to book these products online is the ideal way to increase your revenue while minimizing the costs of administration of these value added sales.
Our system allows you to set up an unlimited number of ancillary products in the core system and release them for sale on the internet. Some examples of the products that our customers sell online include:
Travel Insurance
A popular product to sell online is travel insurance. Set this up as a one off cost or charge by the day for the length of stay. An automated report can be sent to the insurance company notifying them each time one of your customers buys this product so that they can fulfil the sale and documentation.
Excess Baggage
Reduce some of the stress at the airport by allowing your passengers to by excess baggage in advance either by the kilo or by extra bags. A report will be sent to the airport just prior to the flight notifying them of all the passengers who have pre-paid for extra baggage for each flight.
Sport Equipment
Ski equipment, bicycles and golf bags. You can configure an unlimited number of products to sell online and the airport staff can check at anytime each items that has been booked for each flight so that they can be prepared in advance. If you are being handled by a handling agent at any of your airports these products will be included on the PNL sent to the 3rd party Departure Control System so they know what to expect.
Excursions
Excursions can be set up by arrival city so you can offer the relevant content to your passengers based on where they are going. An automated report will be sent to the company providing the excursion so that know who is arriving and on which flight.
Airport Transfer
Have different prices and services based on both the departing and arrival cities so that you are offering the services that your local contractor can fulfil. Send automated emails to the transport company just before the flight so that they can be waiting to pick up or drop off your passengers to provide as seemless journey.
Airport Parking
Airport parking can be set up based on the departing city of the flight so that you can set different prices by the hour, day or week. Capture the registration, make and color of the car to avoid confusion at the car parking facility.
Hotels
Hotel inventory can be managed either manually or dynamically. For small airlines with close relationships with the hotels you may choose to do this manually to control the number of rooms on sale at each location and for each room type. A copy of the booking can then be automatically emailed to the hotel at the time of the booking.
Larger airlines or those who want to provide a wide range of hotels can integrate with a large hotel content provider. Using Dynamic Packaging we will display content in real time from 3rd party systems to provide a vast choice of hotels from all over the world.
Car Hire
In the same way as hotels, car hire can be managed either manually or by conection to a 3rd party provide which automatically provides price and availability from the car hire companies inventory system.
You set up the products to work in the follwing way:
- To display on the website or not
- Multiply cost by number of segments
- With product descriptions
- Group products in categories
- Resrtict purchase to all passengers or none
- Default quatity of auto selection
- With units (e.g. kilo's, number of passengers, days)
- Collect additional information
- Currency of product price
- Departure and arrival city for availability
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Passenger Details  |
You decide which information you want to collect.
With so many airlines operating in different regions under different restrictions we've made this page highly configurable to meet the needs of your airline and your passengers. Choose from many options which data fields are displayed, which ones you want to be mandatory and which should be optional.
Customer Registration
Allow your customers to make a profile and sign into the website so that all their contact details are automatically populated. This also provides you with a database of your regular customers which is stored in the core reservations database to allow extensive reporting and marketing campaigns.
Passenger Names
Choose from a list of our pre-configured titles that you want to be displayed in the drop down. By default both forst and second names are mandatory with a minimum of 2 characters required. Passenger types are automatically added with adults first, childern and infants last based on the passenger types selected at the start of the booking search.
Phone Numbers
The system can be set up to collect home, business, mobile/cell and alternative telephone numbers. A drop down list is provided to display the country code for the passengers to select and the system will automatically add the code to the booking so that the correct format is stored for SMS campaigns. Make any of these number mandatory or optional.
Email Addresses
Email addresses are validated for correct formating and you can also add a second input box to validate and confirm the email address to ensure the customer gets it right. The lead passengers email will be used for the email confirmation to its important that its correct. You may also collect email addresses for the other passengers in the booking as they are passenger related when they are stored.
Special Service Requests
In the back office system you can choose from our default list of IATA special requests and they will be displayed on this page. You can also add an unlimited number of SSR's in the back office to display here.
Newsletters
Allow customers to sign up to your airline newsletter so you can keep them posted with news and promotions. You can then run reports and campaigns based on the data collected.
Creating profiles on the fly
For customers who have not yet created a profile you can allow them to add a password with their booking and the system will automatically create a profile based on the contact details on completion of the booking and it will email them the login details for when they return. This is usually optional as you don't want to deter them from completing the booking.
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Payment Solutions | Choose your provider, We'll do the work.
Payment Solutions for airlines are usually restricted or dictated by your local or international presence as a company, meaning that your banking and merchant facilities will require us to integrate with specific payment providers. Dont worry.We have worked with over 60 payment gateway providers from all round the globe. When the time is right we will guide you through what is often a confusing process in selecting a provider and choosing the right product for your airline.
Direct Interface. Application level integration
This is the type of payment interface that we recommend. Where possible where your selected payment provider suppports this type of interface this is a much more flexible solution. We build the application into our central system so that when a payment is taken our application links to the payment gateway with a series of messages to obtain authorization. The benefit of this is 2 fold; first of all the users session stays within our system and our control so that errors are less likely to occur from any redirection. Secondly it means that as well as taking payments from the public internet, you staff can use the same interface at the call center for phone bookings and at the airport for changes and excess baggage etc. This is sometimes refered to as a MOTO interface. (Mail Order/Telephone Order) or a Terminal Interface.
Redirect Interface. Web Page Handover.
In some instances your Payment Service Provider (PSP) will either not have the direct type of interface or will stipulate that you must use a Web Page Handover interface. This is usually due to the PSP having limited technical capabilities, or because of commercial reasons, for example in some regions where there is a high fraud rate, or if they deem your business to be high risk in the case of a start up company.
With a Web Page Handover the internet booker will be passed from the Videcom web pages to the Payment Service Providers webpages to carry out authorization. Because the authorization is being carried out on their web page the fraud risk is deemed to be lower as they are directly validating the card user. As detailed above, the downside to this is that we have lost control of the users session as it has been passed to a 3rd party and we have to wait for them to hand the session back to the Videcom pages before we can complete the booking. Obviously because the cardholder has to fill out details on the 3rd party website this cannot be used by your airline staff to take any payments so it is only suitbale for public internet bookings.
More on Payment Gateways here...
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Some of the Payment Gateways that we have implemented in the past include:
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Booking Summary  | 2 in 1: concise summary with dashboard control
Whether you have just completed your booking or if you are returning to view your booking, we provide a common landing page which shows you all the details of your flights and extra products and allows you to manage your booking.
At this stage the booking has been completed, paid for and ticketed so the passenger now has access to functions that should only be permitted at this status. For example the following changes can be made to the booking:
- Change flight dates or route (if permitted) with change fees if applicable
- Display confirmation to print
- Select seats from seat map
- Select meals if applicable
- Add Special Service Requests
- Enter APIS details (Advance Passenger Information)
- Print boarding pass online
- Book additional ancillary products such as excess baggage or insurance etc.
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Email Confirmation | Configurable to your airline
Emails are generated automatically from the central core systems as soon as the booking has been completed and sent to the lead passenger email address in the booking. The airline may choose from several different email layouts and formats including HTML and Plain Text.
Automatically sent when changes are made to the booking
In addition to the email being sent on confirmation of the initial booking the system can be configured to resend the email when changes are made to the booking. So for example when a passenger changes their flight or adds an ancillary product such as an excursion the system will imediatley resend the email confirmation with itinerary to the passenger with the changes reflected.
Email Options: - Include individual ticket numbers
- Terms and condtions of carraige
- Book now pay later alternative format
- Show ancillary products booked
- Show fare for each passenger
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Manage My Booking  | Feature Rich Booking Management
Our high tech functions allow your customers to return to their booking to make changes and use additional extensions to enhance the online experience with your airline.
A Win Win strategy.
Providing more online features to your customers not only increases the level of service to your customers by allowing them to instantly make changes to their bookings, but also reduces the level of dependency on your staff meaning reduced call center and administration activity. And of course reduces your costs.
Increase Your Service Level
In many regions of the world passengers now expect to be able to choose their seats, change their flights and check-in online in their own time on the move or from home. If you are not able to offer these services your passengers are likely to travel on one of your competitors just to make their life easier.
Reduce Your Costs
Why hire staff to handle passenger processing requirements when an automated system can do it so much more efficiently. From additional sales to online check-in, the more that your customers can do online the lower your operating costs will be. |
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Seat Selection | Offer a higher level of service to your customers by allowing them to select there seats on the aircraft from our real time dynamic seat map. The passengers are displayed a graphical seat plan of the aircraft showing all the amenities available which not only provides them with the exact choice of seat from those available, but will save your staff valubale time during check-in at the airport.
Seat plans are set up in the central system for each aircraft where your system administrators create each aircraft configuration that you have. When the passengers start the seat selection process the actual seat plan which has been allocated for that flight is displayed with all necassary updates including occupied seats, seat which are blocked in tghe departure control system, seats which require payment prior to requesting and seats which are not suitable for different passenger types such as infants and children.
The seat plan is displayed showing all the passengers in the booking and from there the user will scroll down the aircraft to view which seats are availalable and which ones are either occupied or blocked. The icons of the passengers are then selected and placed in the seats required clearly showing the seat numvbers and the position in the aircraft. As soon as the seats are confirmed the seat numbers are updated in the central seat plan for the flight and date of the booking and the seats are recorded in the PNR. In real time, these selections are then visible in the departure control system at the airport or they are sent on the PNL to your handling agent. |  |
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Meal Selection
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VRS allows you to pre-program in all the meal types that you offer on board from standard IATA meal codes to special meals that you want to offer . They can even be grouped into categories so that you can display them to your customers in meal type preferance. All meals booked online are stroed in the bookings in real time and distributed to your caters with automated messaging at a pre-defined time before the flight. An email can be sent automatically to an unlimited number of recipients displaying the names and seat numbers of all the passengers that have pre-ordered meals and the total number of passengers on the flight broken down by passenger type.
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Special Service Requests
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You configure the requests you can handle
You can allow your passengers to add SSR's to their bookings either as part of the booking process of when they revisit their booking at a later date. All special service requests are stored in the booking in real time and visible on SSR lists for flights throughout the system. SSR lists can be sent via email or TTY message to the airport, and they are also included on the Passenger Name Lists (PNL) sent to handing agents for check-in by 3rd parties.
If you're using VRS to check-in at the airport the SSR's for all bookings on the flight are visible to your check-in staff and are also included on the Passenger Information List (PIL) for airline crew to take on board.
VRS is delivered with approx 50 standard IATA SSR's pre-programmed and you can add an unlimited amount to that to suite your market.
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Check-in Online
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Real Time Check-in. Real Easy.
Now your passengers can relax, check-in at home and know they will have the seat they want with the added comfort of a boarding pass in their hand before they even leave for the airport.
The internet booking engine can be configured by the airline to allow online check-in at any pre-defined time prior to the flight. The configuration is set up by departing city so you may want to allow online check-in up to 24 hours in advance of the flight for those airports where you send Passenger Name Lists at 24 hours prior to the flight, while allowing online check-in to continue up to the time of the flight where you are using the Videcom DCS which is fully integrated.
Because both the online check-in and Videcom DCS are fully integrated and working from the same Eticket database any changes made in either system are immediately visible in both systems. So when a passenger checks-in online at home the check-in staff can see straight away they are marked as check-in online.
The online boarding pass is configurable so you can fine tune the information displayed to your passengers.
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Customer Registration For direct to public bookings over the internet the online booking module provides a high level of functionality to your passengers to improve the experience they have of booking online by reducing the time required to make bookings and offering additional services.
Features include:
- Allows customers to create a profile which stores their username, password, contact details, passport number, date of birth, newsletter registration, and various other options
- Registered users can request SMS messages to be automatically sent to them for various activities including on the completion of a booking and when there has been a schedule change
- Customers may edit their profile at any time to update their details
- Automatic emails are sent to the customer when they make changes to their profile to confirm the changes
- Sign in Panel for customers to login to the website
- Password protected
- Request password to be resent via email when forgotten
- When logged in the customers can see a list of all their past and future bookings
- The customers name is displayed at the top of all web pages when signed in
- An API is available to keep the users signed in while navigating to other areas of the airline website which is not hosted on the Videcom servers
- Profiles may be created on the fly when completing a booking simply by entering a password
- Customers may sign in at any time either on the main website of at the point of completing the booking
- When signed in the contact details of that user is automatically populated when they land on the customer details page of the booking
More on Frequent Travellers here...
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