IA upgrades its reservation system

“Occasionally the CRS fails three to four times a week and sometimes the system is even down for two days at a stretch,” said Farid Sisodia, an IA authorised agent from Bandra.

During such crisis, travel agents trying to book manually find the telephone lines at airline’s central reservation counter in Air-India building, Nariman Point jammed for hours. “Between 10 am and 3 pm we just cannot get through,” says Neves Dias of Alpine Travels, Bandra. Travel agents based in South Mumbai however manage by sending a man across to IA’s counter. Crowds also gather at IA’s booking office at Mumbai airport where passengers and agents’ representatives flock to confirm bookings.

But small travel agents, particularly those in the suburbs, stand to lose business. “Since we are a small agency we cannot afford to keep a man at Nariman Point, we try and send a customer by private airlines. If a party insists on flying only on IA, we have to lose business,” says K N Shah, proprietor of Shah Travels based in the suburbs.

Indian Airlines officials, however, say they have not received any complaints from the travel trade. According to spokesman Raman Khanna, adequate telephone and fax facilities have been provided in the separate cell created for bookings on phone.

Though he denied that IA’s CRS collapses for long hours at a stretch, Khanna pointed out that the system’s response is slower during peak hours. “The IBM system which will become fully operational in the next few months will offer quicker response,” he said. It will take care of onward bookings, departure control, baggage retrieval, allow specification of meal preferences and connecting flights, he added.