Air Ticketing

 

Document production, or Doc Prod, is also known as ticketing. While each provider and supplier has different ticketing requirements, ticketing involves more than the ability to issue a ticket "document" or message. For example, in Galileo, ticketing also includes functions such as:

• Supporting documents, such as charge form and passenger receipts as parts of a ticket.

• Issuing an invoice.

• Handing off MIR (accounting) data.

• Handing off GIDS (pre- and post-ticketing) data.

• TASF for agency service fees.

• Miscellaneous Charge Orders (MCO)

  • MCO is used by ARC countries only, which are US, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.

  • All BSP markets are now using EMD instead of MCO.

• Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD).

When a ticket is requested, the customer almost always wants to create an itinerary/invoice and a MIR. The documents that are generated or issued are determined by printer linkage, which is permanent on a static GTID and linked each time for a dynamic GTID.

Document production assumes:

• The agency support document print table is established. If not, an error is returned. An error is also returned if the table was established, but something in it is no longer valid.

• The TINS tables exist.

• The printer linkage has been created. Use the Admin Portal to set up printer connections.

• Any ticketing modifiers are already stored.

• The booking has been end transacted.

• There is a form of payment present in the FOP field of the booking or the ticketing modifiers.
  
  Note: When testing in a development environment, credit card numbers for FOP testing purposes can and should be requested from the credit card issuer directly. Travelport does not provide test credit card numbers.

Ticketing Process

Basic ticketing for a booking contains one passenger and one stored fare, but any number of tickets can be issued from one stored fare quote when a booking has multiple passengers. As well, with segment and/or passenger selection it is possible to have more than one fare quote, for example, when there are no interline agreements between carriers in the itinerary, or if passengers want to pay for their tickets separately. When a multiple stored fare ticketed booking is imported, all the stored fares and the ETRs/tickets are associated into the Universal Record (UR).

The actual ticket issue request is the same for all options, and the basic steps are: 

• Retrieve the PNR.
• Set the printer linkage. The documents that are generated or issued are determined by printer linkage, which is permanent on a static GTID and linked each time for a dynamic GTID.

• Issue the ticket.

Before ticketing, the customer should first display the provider booking to check for changes to the ticketing data. If there have been changes, the ticketing process is stopped, and the customer receives a message that the Universal Record (UR) and the provider booking are out of sync. See Synching with the Universal Record for details. The UR is synched at this time, and the customer must check following elements/attributes against the Host:

• Passenger Names
• Air segments - any changes
• Fare quote amounts
• Fare quote ticketing status

If the provider is out of sync with the UR, the UR is synched, and a message is returned to signify the out-of-sync condition. The message indicates the PNR area(s) where the out-of-sync condition was found. The message states:

"Host changes have occurred. The UR has been updated. Review the booking and request your documents again."

Note: The addition of non-air segments does not affect the stored fare and does not trigger the error.

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Ticketing with no stored fare is not allowed. Ticketing is stopped if:

• No saved pricing exists within the UR. An error is returned: "No Air Pricing exists within UR - use UR Modify to store new Air Pricing".
• No stored fare exists in the PNR. An error is returned: "No stored fare in Host PNR - use UR Modify to store new fare".

The following devices are supported for document issuance:

• Ticket Printer
• Itinerary Printer
• MIR - back office handoff

Synchronizing with the Universal Record

Ticket data is synchronized to the Universal Record (UR) at several points in the life of the ticket:

• Ticket issuance.
• ETR display
• When the UR is displayed and a new ticket number exists (issued outside the UR)
• During PNR display when there are no live segments in the PNR, and the last ETR status was NOT a final status
• After a ticket exchange - both the exchanged and new ticket must be synchronized
• After a ticket void
• After a ticket refund
• First PNR display ever in the UR

Ticket data is not synched when the PNR is displayed and there are no changes.

A Ticketed indictor in AirPricingInfo shows if the PNR had been ticketed through the host or not. "True" indicates it has been ticketed and "false" indicates unticketed. This indicator applies to PNR Import and Universal Record Sync. If the indicator in the UR is different than that returned from the host on a sync, the indicator or in the UR is replaced.

Note:  UR History is not updated with changes to this indicator.

Errors

Errors can occur at many places in the ticketing process. One of the most common is an error returned from the carrier at ticket request. Other errors may occur during pre-ticketing checks and could involve missing TINS tables, missing or outdated printer linkage, credit card authorization failures, fares that have expired or have already been ticketed, and so on.

If a ticket fails in the Host processing, the error is returned in an error text field, and the UR is not synched. If the ticket passes Host processing but fails to issue with the carrier, the message is returned in text, not in as error text.

Exceptions

Options that are currently unavailable include:

• Issuing an MCO or TASF.
• UR sync for exchanged or voided tickets.