The partnership established last year between Garuda Indonesia and Germany’s Lufthansa Systems reached its first milestone earlier this month with the implementation of 0e-ticketing for the Jakarta-based carrier. In Brussels last week IATA director general and CEO Giovanni Bisignani identified e-ticketing as the “flagship project” of the association’s simplifying the business initiative, designed to cut $6.5 billion from the airlines’ costs while making travel more convenient.

IATA’s target is to achieve 100 percent e-ticketing by the end of next year. Last year’s target of 40 percent was met, and the aim is to reach 70 percent by the end of this year. Garuda’s cutover marks the completion of the first stage of what is planned to be the complete modernization of its commercial IT infrastructure. Next on the agenda are the introduction of LHS’s pricing and network planning solutio