TripAdvisor has announced its market-leading mobile app is now pre-installed onto the new Samsung GALAXY S4, enabling millions of consumers worldwide to have easy access to trusted TripAdvisor travel content. TripAdvisor is the only travel app that will be pre-installed on the new Samsung GALAXY S4. In addition to pre-installing the app, Samsung is using TripAdvisor content – including millions of photos and over 100 million reviews and opinions - to power its own travel apps. Travel Widget – Designed to inspire, the Travel Widget will showcase TripAdvisor images of popular travel destinations and attractions around the world.

Kale Consultants, one of the leading solutions providers to the global Airline, Airport, Logistics and Travel (AALT) industry, has introduced a rate shopping tool - 'Travel Shop'. This tool empowers travel agencies to benchmark their own rates against those of competitors on various days or periods in the future and gives a quick insight over how the market and competitors are behaving and accordingly assists to set their rates.

Continental Airlines has announced the expansion of its mobile boarding pass service to London's Heathrow Airport, becoming one of the first carriers to offer paperless boarding passes on nonstop flights from the United Kingdom to the U.S. The service allows customers to receive boarding passes electronically on their cell phones or Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and eliminates the need for paper boarding passes.  

JetLite, the wholly owned subsidiary of Jet Airways India Ltd, today launched its new state- of – the-art online booking engine. This move by JetLite is an attempt to offer a flexible web-sale solution with a clear road map to cater to the increasing ecommerce activities in ticket purchasing pattern in the Indian market.

Guests can follow a simple booking process and make their selection based on 3 parameters - Lowest Fare, Fixed dates or Flexible dates. They will also receive a SMS and an email confirmation of the booking to the mobile number provided.

In addition to the on-line booking engine, key features like ‘Manage my booking’ and ‘PNR Status’ are also added on the website which makes it convenient for the guest to use it as the focus is more on self-service tools and web bookings is a key part of this focus.

Speaking at the launch Mr. Sudheer Raghavan, Chief Commercial Officer, said “We wanted a flexible solution to keep up with the changing times in today’s dynamic and competitive market. This is yet another innovative step by Jet Airways to offer the best to our customers both in terms of experience and value added services.”

This will primarily help us reduce distribution costs and build customer loyalty by offering the value -adds which are not presently offered on other platforms,” he added The unique automated CyberSource Risk screening solution along with the 3D secure Payment gateway as per RBI guidelines ensures transactions are secure.
Jetlite.com also offers web check-in facility where in guests can select their preferred seat and print their boarding pass from the comfort of their home or office.

PRESS RELEASE/Jet Airways

People scared of flying can now press a button on their iPhone to help them deal with their panic, as Virgin Atlantic Airways has launched an application (app) for its Flying Without Fear course which boasts a success rate of over 98 percent.

“Our first iPhone app will bring the benefits of our successful Flying Without Fear course to millions of people around the world who are now using mobile technology to make their lives better.
“The app will put many travellers at ease and enable them to prepare for their first Virgin Atlantic flight,” Richard Branson, Chairman of the Virgin Group said in a statement.
The airline developed the app with Mental Workout, a company developing software to help people resolve issues and increase mental performance.

source | http://www.vanguardngr.com

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Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, today announced the launch of a new and exciting initiative for guests to access to the lowest current fares on the airline network from their mobiles on any given day of travel.

Jet Airways guests may now send a simple SMS to get the lowest real-time fares available on jetairways.com on a particular sector and date. To get the lowest fare information, a guest has to send a simple message in the following format: LFS Origin Destination Date
(in dd/mm format) to 56388. E.g. LFS BOM DEL 25/11 to 56388.

Settle into your seat, open your laptop, notebook computer or high-tech phone, and spend the remaining flight hours sorting your email, keeping up with the news, discovering you could have found a flight for less than you paid, and most of the other things you do online.

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That's an increasingly likely scenario as the domestic airlines scramble to find "value added" features for their dreary and uncomfortable coach product—especially features that bring in more revenue. Onboard Wi-Fi is the new "hot" feature. All you need to use it is a computer or handheld device with Wi-Fi capability (802.11 a/b/g) plus a few bucks for the service. About the only online service you can't get—yet—is VOIP telephone.

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As India's largest private telecom operator, Bharti Airtel has over 100 million cellphone subscribers. Now it has launched an application which can take advantage of its wireless network, and be installed on any mobile handset to enable enterprises to access their data and do business from anywhere around the world.

The concept is similar to cloud computing initiatives initiated by several companies, wherein managers and salespersons (also known as the field force) access business data using the internet from their personal computers (notebooks and desktops) to transact business online.

The difference here is that executives can now use Airtel's GSM network on any mobile handset to access their business-critical data like their enterprise resource planning (ERP) databases, email and intranets. Users can install a client application called the Mobile Applications Tool for Enterprises or MATE from Airtel on their handset. MATE is an integrated telecom & IT platform, and enables authorised users only to access their business data through mobile devices.

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Bid2travel prices are 30-50% cheaper than reputed online travel sites -




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Noble Travels Group, which had launched an online bidding site Bid2Travel.com in April this year, believes the timing of its latest offering is an appropriate one.

Pritpal S. Saini, founder and director of Bid2Travel.com, says this is the perfect time for the launch considering that the travel industry is “transiting through the recessionary period”.

“Everyone is searching and exploring for the new revenue channels and Bid2travel.com delivers the classic win-win situation....more satisfied guests and higher occupancy. We considered various factors before finalising this unique concept and the most important was to make a travel bidding site where nothing is mysterious or hidden from the travellers. Secondly, provide an online platform where customers and hotel owners interact directly with each other,” says Saini.

SriLankan Airlines has started Online Check-In facility for passengers traveling on the airline from Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, New Delhi. The city is the first overseas station where the facility has been introduced. SriLankan Airlines introduced the Online Check-In at Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport in December last year. The facility will be introduced worldwide at the airline’s other points of departure for flights into Colombo and other destinations.

Online Check-In opens 24 hours before a flight and continues up to two hours before a flight. One can even check-in groups of passengers, if the required information and reference numbers are available. A passenger simply needs to visit SriLankan’s website www.srilankan.aero and click on “Online check-in.” The next step is to merely key in four simple entries - name, airport, flight number and booking reference number. The system will automatically assign a seat, which the passenger can change through a user-friendly chart that shows the aircraft’s seating plan, identifying reserved seats in a different colour. The Boarding Pass is then displayed on screen, with all necessary details. Passengers can take a printout of their Boarding Pass, although it is not required since they can produce the e-ticket at the airport and receive a printout of the Boarding Pass from SriLankan staff. Passengers proceed directly to the Online Check-In counter, where bags are weighed etc. Currently, passengers who require special care such as infants and wheelchair passengers will continue to be handled by SriLankan staff, and not through the online system.

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Over 20 million Tata Indicom subscribers will no longer be limited to Internet bookings or bookings via their travel agents to book their flight tickets. Instead, they can choose and book their preferred flight on mobile phones. Tata Teleservices Ltd and PayMate, a mobile commerce company, have partnered to offer a service that enables subscribers to book flight tickets anywhere, anytime on their mobile phone. The duo also plan to offer a range of ticketing applications in the near future — with PayMate built in as a mobile payment option.

The new service enables real-time flight bookings across all domestic airlines at the best available fares. Customers need to download this application one-time from Tata Zone to experience the user-friendly service. The charges for the application vary from Rs 10 for a three-day trial up to Rs 30 a month.
The simple steps that make the service work are: select Origin City, Destination City and Travel Date to get a list of all flights with timings and best fares; choose your preferred flight along with passenger name and email ID; and enter your credit card details over a secure connection and pay to get an instant booking confirmation.

EFYTimes

Soon mobile phones would replace the physical airline ticket. Passengers would just be required to flash their mobile phone and gain access to the terminal building and speedily finish boarding procedures thereafter. For the airports, it would mean efficient boarding and handling more number of passengers.

Siemens Airport Systems Laboratory in Bangalore is working out a technology which would replace the physical boarding pass.

“This is different from the facility being offered by some travel portals and airlines currently. When you book a ticket, the airline sends you information like PNR number, etc as an SMS. This still means that you need to show it at the airline counter and take a print out.

However, this new technology works just like Web check-in, where you can check-in, select your seat through the mobile phone and then you receive a 2D Bar Code which would replace the boarding pass.

You could flash it at the airports where a reader validates it and so wherever required passenger will use this bar code,” Mr Ravi Shankar, Head of Aviation Systems, Siemens Information Systems Ltd, told Business Line.
Shubhra Tandon/Business Line

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This is one much-talked, debated but delayed `flight’ that will finally take off in 2008. Air travellers will be able to use mobile phones in flight. A new technology that creates micro cellular sites called `picocells’, within an aircraft, without interfering with the airplanes communication or other systems will make this possible.



The picocell networks within the aircraft will send the mobile signals to satellites which will relay them to ground links, providing interconnection between the aircraft, ground, public networks and home operators. Satellite links will ensure that calls be made even while flying over oceans, offering connectivity throughout a flight.
More than a dozen global airlines including Indian carriers are deploying these miniature cellular networks within their aircraft to enable mobile services in air. The call costs at around $3.50 to $4 per minute are much cheaper than the current charges of cumbersome satellite phones in aircraft ($10-12 per minute) and are expected to fall to levels of global roaming rates as the service become common. In India Kingfisher has signed a MoU with OnAir to install a system enabling data services on board its long haul flights.
Shelley Singh/Economic Times

India’s Kingfisher Airlines has signed with OnAir for in-flight Internet and mobile phone communications services for its planned long-haul international operations.


OnAir announced this morning at Asian Aerospace in Hong Kong that the in-flight communications services will start to be introduced by Kingfisher in 2008, and that by 2009 passengers will be able to use the Internet while in-flight, as well as send and receive emails and make and receive calls on their own mobile devices.



The services will initially be offered on five Airbus A330s and five Airbus A340-500s. OnAir says the airline plans to eventually have the system on all its long-range aircraft. The carrier also has Airbus A350s and A380s on order.

Kingfisher is the first Indian carrier to sign with OnAir, which is a joint venture between Airbus and SITA. Its services are based on an onboard server connected to ground through Inmarsat’s broadband satellite infrastructure, SwiftBroadband.

05/09/07 Nicholas Ionides/Flightglobal.com/Flight International