The Airline Revenue Accounting System Overview - eTARAS

ANNOUNCEMENT - We are very pleased to announce our partnership with Amadeus. By incorporation Amadeus in our passenger and cargo interline solution, your implementation is made considerably easier, provides comprehensive support equal to that of the major airlines and at a price all airlines, even the smallest, can afford. You now only have to put into place the agreements between your airline and the ones you want to interline with. We handle the rest transparently for you. We will also provide the consulting service to establish the bilateral agreements with the other airlines at no cost.

As with all of our products, if you are a verifiable airline, our interline products are provided to you at no charge.

We at Flight Data Management, hope all of you are as excited about the partnership of Flight Data Management and Amadeus as we are.

Dr. Jim Monroe
President
Flight Data Management

Important

This year, 2007, the major airlines of the world have agreed to the following:

1. Travel Agents will no longer be given free connection to the major airlines. Travel agents will be required to use the Internet for connection to the reservation systems.

2. The major airlines have committed that they will no longer support IATA tickets. They will all support eTickets for their airlines.

Both of these effect passenger interline accounting, as well as Interline passenger reservations.

eTARAS Overview

The objective of eTARAS is to provide passenger airlines with a computerized solution to the needs of passenger revenue accounting departments.

eTARAS is fully integrated into the Flight Data Management's (FDM), eTARS, The Airline Reservation System, and FDM's general ledger program eLedger. A stand-alone version is available that will allow you to use eTARAS and eLedger in conjunction with your reservation system.

eTARS accepts payment for reservations from both the Internet and Interlining with other reservation systems.

Following is a brief description of the Internet connected sources:

Internet Source	Method of Payment Allowed
Passengers	Credit Card, Delayed Payment
Travel Agents	BSP, Credit Card, Invoice
Other Airlines	ACH, Credit Card, Invoice
Corporate Customers	Credit Card, Invoice

All of these reservations are booked directly on eTARS and are considered paid for at the time of booking. The collection from ACH, BSP and invoices are tracked by Flight Data Managements normal accounting applications.

Delayed payment allows passengers to make a reservation via the Internet and then pay for the reservation at the airline's ticket offices or at travel agents. If the itinerary is not paid for with-in the set time limits it is deleted from the reservation system.

Following is a brief description of the Interlined connected sources:

Internet Source	Method of Payment Allowed
Travel Agents	BSP
Other Airlines	ACH

All of these reservations are booked directly on eTARS and are considered paid for at the time of booking. The collection from ACH and BSP are tracked by Flight Data Managements normal accounting applications.

Only reservations that are paid for appear on the check-in passenger list. If the reservation is not on the list there is no possible way for the passenger to be boarded.

The revenue system for Interline sources is fully based upon IATA's BSP and ACH standards and supports a 100% match use design. Match use is the comparing of the interline BSP/ACH fare, the fare actually on the ticket and the fare master contain in eTARS.

eTARS generated pricing includes tariff master match for point-to-point and interline agreements, straight rate proration, and IATA standard proration.

Marketing and sales analysis reports fully complement the revenue accounting needs.

The revenue system is comprehensive in scope and detail, and at the same time, it is efficient and cost effective; it reduces the number of personnel needed for pricing, auditing, revenue recovery, and the various supportive functions of the revenue system. If your airline presently interlines passengers, your accounting staff will be reduced by more then one half the present number.

To eliminate data input, each reservation made on eTARS generates the passenger's record automatically in the reservation system. Facilities to "down load" data from outside sources including credit card authorities, ACH and BSP.

eTARS reservation system provides a processing module with the capability to capture all sales transactions, retain the transactions and transfer the sales data into the accounting system for input free processing. The accounting department is not required to input reservations or the payment data. This leaves accounting to do what they are trained to do.

An additional means to minimize data input is provided, as the initial reservation is automatically created, whether auditor or boarded passenger, the system creates a database file on the initial entry. When additional data are input, a search is initiated against the database. If a match is found all data previously input are displayed thereby eliminating redundant data input. The new data is made part of the original database file.

The passenger's records is verified when it is input for the first time. The following checks are automatically done:

• Does the flight exist and is there seats available?
• Is the payment being made correct?
• Is the passenger information available?
• Is the user who is making the reservation properly identified?

If all of the above is correct then the reservation is booked. If additional information is needed or some is incorrect a query is generated. When all things are correct then the reservation is booked otherwise it is rejected.

Each time the passenger's record is accessed the above checks are done again. This procedure insures that each reservation booked into the system is correct and paid for.

The revenue system provides following functions:

• Automate billings including ACH, BSP, invoices and credit cards.
• Variance processing with automatic creation of debit/credit and rejection memos.
• Extensive audit capabilities and trails are provided.
• Reduce itinerary pricing errors by system matching the tariff master and proration.
• Evaluate marketing and business strategy through yield and revenue analysis of the available data.
• Evaluate travel agency effectiveness through sales analysis reports.

The Revenue System is divided into the following areas:

• Passenger Identification Number Tracking
• Auditor's Accounting
• Boarding Pass Processing
• OAL Coupons
• Match-Use
• Travel Agency
• Memos

The modules have extensive interfacing capability to methodically track, maintain, control and monitor revenue system management by passenger identification number, location, status, agency pricing factors, and all clearing house functions.

All the methods and procedures required for a fully functional passenger revenue system department are incorporated into these modules.

In addition, full reporting capability assures clearing house compliance, accounting and budget projection accuracy, and marketing support.

Passenger Identification Number Tracking establishes inventory control to on-line sales and serves as the source for the reports of unreported sales, sold reservations open, and sold reservation tickets closed including variance capture, passenger credit and the earned/unearned revenue position.

For processing an itinerary's components, the auditor's record and the lifted boarded pass record, three processing areas are provided.

Auditor's Accounting (sales) is used to process the entry, validation, pricing and reporting of all itinerary sales. This includes passenger, baggage, upgrades or any other sales transaction.

Sales processing provides the source for the air traffic liability (unearned revenue).

When the aircraft takes-off the following actions take place:

• Accounting records are restricted from changes by all personnel except accounting. Other areas can still view the records but are not allowed to change them.
• Accounting now focuses on specific flights rather than considering the airline's total financial picture.

The next step in the processing procedure is to input any corrections and/or price individual tickets either manually or by access to proration processing

A specific flight selected by an auditor is checked to insure that the flight information is correct, that all payments have been received and that any payments due have been moved to the correct processing queue.

If errors are found, the problems are in most cases automatically resolved by the system. In the case where an auditor must make changes the area in error is displayed and high lighted. Once the auditor corrects any errors the flight is re-submitted for testing by the system.

Once a batch passes the testing the flight data is transfer from work-in-progress to history as a detailed record and provide a variety of audit, invoice and month-to-date reports. The data in history is available for all accounting reports and activities, but the data and can no be changed, unless the protecting device is over ridden by management.