Air travellers leverage e-transaction for cheaper fares

By Louis Iba

FROM the comfort of a bedroom, inside an office cubicle, and while inside a car, or a busy market stall, some air travellers in Ni­geria now enjoy the ease of bookings, checking in luggage, securing seats in aircraft, and paying for all such services online. This is possible through vari­ous electronic channels and portals deployed by airlines and travel agents across the country.

With these platforms, Ni­geria’s passenger traffic on domestic routes is reported to have risen by 20 per cent, according to a recent indus­try data obtained by Daily Sun.

This increase in the num­ber of passengers booking cheaper flights online is listed as one of the factor for the increased growth.

Though an increasing number of passengers in Ni­geria now only arrive at air­port terminals in the country to pick up a boarding pass and hop into a flight hav­ing done the bookings and payments online, a greater majority are still ignorant of the existence and benefits of electronic transactions now enjoyed globally in the aviation, tourism and hospi­tality industry.

A female passenger, Lucy Ibanga, travelling from La­gos to Uyo on a domestic airline, at the Lagos airport told Daily Sun she has nev­er bought air tickets in the last five years at any airline counters at the airport.

“I can’t remember ever buying tickets at any airline counter since 2011; I usu­ally pre-book online and I make payments online and the fares come cheaper and I also save the time I have to go to the airport to pay,” she said. But it is not the same for another male pas­senger on the same flight, Donatus Udoma, who said he still prefers to buy at the counter.

“As far as we live in Ni­geria, I don’t trust the integ­rity of the online booking; I don’t do it. I have friends working for airlines and they help me get the tickets or I go to the airline counter whenever I want to fly and buy my ticket,” he said.

There are many air trav­ellers like Udoma who have heard of the online booking system and have opted out based on fears over the integrity of the technology. But there could also be a vast majority of others, especially amongst infrequent travellers, who are totally ignorant of the existence of electronic transactions in Nigeria’s aviation industry.

“To such class of igno­rant passengers, there is the need to get them informed that not only is it now cheaper but it is even faster and easier these days to purchase tickets online and then check in making use of laptops, desktop com­puters, tablets or phones,” said Mathew Ojimah, an air traveller at the Lagos airport.

Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia underscor­ing the importance of e-transactions in the airline industry said “Globally in the last 15 years, there has been a significant shift to­wards more online booking for flights as more airlines and travel agents now have internet engine websites.