Hahn Air’s Ticketing Solutions Boosting business for travel agencies and airlines
Aviation distribution can be quite complex. Travel agencies don’t have access to all airline content and airlines cannot make their flights available via every travel agency. Hahn Air is closing this distribution gap with their ticketing solutions, making hundreds of additional airlines available to travel agencies. In an insightful conversation, Bharat Kapoor, Regional Vice President of Hahn Air, shared with us how the company is generating incremental revenue for travel agencies and airlines.
What are the services Hahn Air is offering for travel agencies? How can they benefit from additional ticketing opportunities?
Hahn Air has been offering ticketing services to travel agencies since 1999. By partnering with Hahn Air, airlines can sell their flights in markets where they would normally not be available. If an airline is, for example, not in the Indian BSP or does not grant ticketing authority in India, they can still be issued by travel agents in India in their GDS on the Hahn Air ticket. Our services are strictly B2B, meaning we provide our partners’ tickets via travel agencies only. The advantage for travel agents is that they have access to more routes, more destinations, more airlines and more combinations of airlines on one single HR-169 ticket. And they can even use the standard processes of their GDS, no training is required. They only need to choose HR as the validating carrier. And best of all, the service is absolutely free. Even partner airlines that are not a member of any GDS themselves are available to Indian travel agents in all major GDSs via the Codes H1 and X1. Hahn Air is currently partnering with over 350 airlines.
How does Hahn Air’s ticketing services work? Please throw light on Hahn Air Systems’ and Hahn Air Technologies’ distribution solutions.
To issue a Hahn Air ticket, travel agents do not need to leave their GDS. All they need to do is go through the standard ticketing and payment processes and simply choose Hahn Air (HR) as the validating carrier. They will then be able to use the familiar GDS processes to issue a Hahn Air HR169 ticket. On the Hahn Air website, we provide easy step-by-step guides on how to issue a Hahn Air ticket in each GDS (www.hahnair.com/de/gds-ticketing-assistant). For airlines that are not in a GDS at all under their own two-letter code, we make them available in all major GDSs. If they are a partner airline of Hahn Air Systems, they are available under the code H1. If they are a partner airline of Hahn Air Technologies, they are available under the code X1. As Hahn Air Systems and Hahn Air Technologies are sister companies of Hahn Air, the travel agents can simply select Hahn Air as the validating carrier and issue a Hahn Air HR-169 ticket.
How important is India market for Hahn Air?
India is one of the strongest markets for us at Hahn Air. Over the years we have added many airlines for our travel agency community and thereby provide additional ticketing opportunities. The agencies benefit by being able to serve their clients in a more efficient and profitable manner. Ultimately, our partner agencies saw a strong revenue growth and, therefore, more and more agencies were wanting to work with us. To acknowledge the importance of the market, we also established a dedicated Service Desk for India. The 24/7 Service Desk can be reached by e-mail at serviceindia@hahnair.com. In addition, I am happy to provide trainings, sales support and answers on how to increase a travel agency’s revenue with the Hahn Air solutions.
Hahn Air strives to support the local community and a more environmentally friendly air transportation. Tell us about Hahn Air’s current nature-positive initiatives.
We are assuming responsibility for our impact on the environment and on society. We, therefore, believe that it is our duty to invest in a sustainable future and support social projects benefitting our local community and people in need around the world. To mitigate climate change, Hahn Air partners with veritree, a technology platform enabling and tracking global restoration projects. Hahn Air committed to restoring coastal mangrove forests in Kenya and Madagascar by planting 150,000 trees which equals an area of 15 hectares. The Hahn Air tree population, once matured, will sequester for an average of 32,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. To contribute to a more sustainable air transport, we are also looking into solutions for our travel agency and airline partners. It is our declared goal to offer carbon compensation options for flights distributed through Hahn Air in the future. In addition, we are supporting social projects around the world via our own foundation, the Hahn Air Foundation.