At present, when booking tickets online, travellers must choose their preferred destination and time of travel first. Under the new system, they will first be able to search for the cheapest fares and then select their preferred flights, said THAI vice president for sales and distribution Teerapol Chotichanapibal.

He said there was no doubt consumers would enjoy and benefit from the new application.

Until now, THAI has had a similar system operating with travel agents, who can search for the best fares to given destinations and then settle on flight timing. But this system has not yet reached end-users.

THAI director of pricing and marketing services Ohm Planichaya said the new system, which is enabled by Amadeus e-Travel Flex Pricer technology, will be ready for implementation in the first half of next year and apply to all domestic and international flights.

Ohm said THAI had no plan to undercut its ticket prices, but the new system would allow it more flexibility in competing with budget carriers.

He said the sophisticated system would set ticket prices automatically in accordance with forecasts of aircraft utilisation capacity.

Those who book earlier, for example, might get cheaper fares, although this may not be the case if they choose to fly during, say, a festival season. However, Teerapol said there might be a price difference of 100 per cent between lowest and highest fares for the same flight.

According to the Amadeus website, many airlines, including Singapore Airlines, already employ the e-Travel Flex Pricer system. It allows travellers to see fare options across different times, fare classes and dates on a single screen, offering users a broad choice between prices, schedules and fare flexibility.

The system can easily be integrated into an airline's existing infrastructure to reduce costs, increase time to market and enable airlines to implement new fare strategies, manage and display real-time availability and structure and manage fares and fare families, it said.

Teerapol said 98 per cent of THAI tickets were currently purchased from travel agents and THAI ticketing offices. Only 2 per cent are purchased online.

However, THAI expects online booking to increase to at least 10 per cent within five years.

Teerapol said that although THAI was planning to sell more tickets itself with the new online system, it was not planning to undercut the fares charged by its travel agents.

Ohm said that unlike selling its tickets through traditional channels, online ticketing gave THAI greater flexibility in offering extra benefits to passengers. For example, the national carrier is offering extra frequent-flyer mileage to passengers who book online. It is also implementing a joint marketing campaign with a credit-card company.

THAI currently flies more than 30 million passengers annually.

Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul

Pichaya Changsorn

The Nation