Buying airline tickets in Ukraine can be a real headache, so why not try buying them in cyberspace instead?
Slowly but surely, online services once common only in the West are becoming available in Ukraine. Booking flights online is one of them.
One of the first Ukrainian companies to offer such services was Lucky Travel Inc, a daughter company of Internet provider Lucky Net Ltd. A small group of travel agents used to offer booking services online at http://www.travel.kiev.ua.
One of the main problems the travel agents first encountered was that Ukrainian tourists were not highly welcome overseas.
'Whenever international online booking [agents] came across Kyiv as a departure city, they refused to offer any sort of discount on airline tickets,' said Yury Safronenko, manager at Lucky Travel Inc. 'It seems airline companies are unwilling to offer discounts for passengers flying from Ukraine.'
Although Lucky Travel has since switched from taking online flight bookings to sending fax transmissions via the Internet, other companies are jumping in to fill the gap it left.
Even the airlines themselves are realizing that the Internet is an invaluable marketing and advertising tool for boosting ticket sales.
Ukrainian International Airlines launched its revamped Web site (http://www.uia.ukrpack.net) in mid March. However there are still a few kinks in UIA's online booking procedure that need working out, as the four-stage process appears over-complex.
First, customers must fill out a booking request form, in which they indicate the departure and destination cities and the time of travel desired.
Second, a sales agent sends the customer a list of available flights.
Third, customers choose which flight they wish to book a seat on, and fourth, they are given a booking number, which they must present at one of the airline's ticket offices to receive their tickets.
'The customer can pay either a week ahead of the flight date or a few hours before the flight,' said Natalya Kharitonova, a sales agent at UIA. 'However, it will substantially increase the cost of the ticket.'
UIA isn't selling very many tickets online yet, but hopes this will change in the near future
'Currently, I'm the only one dealing with online airline ticket booking in the sales department,' Kharitonova said. She expects business to pick up when more people in Ukraine get online.
One of UIA's competitors, Aerosvit, also plans to offer online ticket sales.
According to Oleksy Kochanov, Aerosvit's commercial director, the airline's new Web site is currently under construction. It will replace http://www.aerosweet.com, the company's old site, in April.
– Olena Nikolayenko
