Airline Ancillary Services
Airline Ancillary Services is a module of the Websky system which allows the buyer to get a list of ancillary services from the airline and, if desired, to buy them.
Contents
Module description
Ancillary services are designed to make a trip more comfortable and pleasant. Ancillary services may include:
- Preliminary selection of a seat in the aircraft
- Additional space for baggage (including excess baggage)
- Transportation of pets
- Additional meals
- Possibility to book high comfort lounges
- Priority registration
- Other additional services
Information about available ancillary services is provided by the airline.
Enabling the module
Airline Ancillary Services module is enabled by the Websky system administrator. If you want to start using the Airline Ancillary Services module, create a ticket with a request in the project tracker. To start receiving ancillary services, go to Product Control → Avia Tickets → Additional Services → Additional Airline Services and select the packages in which you want to work with ancillary services. At the moment, the airline ancillary services are implemented for GDS Sirena Travel, Amadeus, Sabre, SITA Gabriel, as well as connectors S7 NDC and Navitaire.
Airline Ancillary Services guide
Websky receives information about available ancillary services from GDS in encrypted form (RFISC identifier). Names and descriptions of ancillary airline services to be displayed to the user are created in the System's static directory and its relevance is maintained manually. Names and descriptions of ancillary airline services are added to the guide by a Websky employee at the agent's request and according to the information provided by him.
At present, the guide contains descriptions of ancillary services for several airlines. If an ancillary airline service is received by the system, but a service with such RFISC is not available in the guide, its display on the order page for the user depends on the type of user:
- For B2B users, the service will be displayed with the name received from the GDS,
- For B2C-users, the service not included in the directory will not be displayed.
If you noticed ancillary airline services that are not displayed to B2C-user or are coded in Latin for B2B-user, contact the system's project tracker with information about ancillary service of this airline for display.
You can use import for ancillary services. To do this, fill in the file: Airline Ancillary Services Import.xlsx. Add ancillary services of those airlines that you would like to display and sell on your website. The file format is the following: One line - one service. Columns - service parameters. The names of the parameters are displayed in the table header for each column. In each cell of the row, fill in the service parameters.
- CompanyCode - IATA code of the airline that owns the service.
- RFISC - service code RFISC
- RFIC - service RFIC code
- Group - the group to which the service belongs (selection in the drop-down list: Extra Luggage / Meals / Seat selection / VIP service).
- SSRCode - SSR service code
- Type - service type code
- name - name of the service, as it is specified in the GDS
- name_en - name of the service in English. Enter the name of the service in English, which will be displayed to the user on the booking form.
- desc_en - description of the service in English. Enter the description for service in English, it will be displayed to the user on the booking form.
- name_en - the name of the service in Russian. Enter the name of the service in Russian, it will be displayed to the user on the booking form.
- desc_ru - description of the service in the Russian language. Enter the description for service in Russian, it will be displayed to the user on the booking form.
- name_ua - name of the service in the Ukrainian language (optional). If desired, specify the name of the service in Ukrainian, which will be displayed to the user on the booking form.
- desc_ua - description of the service in the Ukrainian language (optional). If desired, specify a description of the service in Ukrainian, which will be displayed to the user on the booking form.
- name_xx - name of the service in the language xx, where xx - language code (optional).
- desc_xx - description of the service in the language xx, where xx - language code (optional).
The language code after "_" at the end of name and desc defines the language of the name and description respectively. You can add as many name and desc columns as you like for different languages in the system - so you can import translations for the name and description of the service at once. Please, provide the information in the ticket to be added to the Websky technical support directory.
Work principle
After the module is enabled, an Ancillary Service block is displayed on the booking form: it contains airline services and the button for selecting a seat in the aircraft (it will be available under each passenger).
Selection of a paid seat.
Ancillary services block.
Attention! Seat selection ancillary service is available both through the Ancillary service: airline services block and through the Aircraft Seat button located under each passenger. If the Seat Selection is not properly established on the side of the service provider, the selection of the Seat Selection ancillary service will be available only through the Aircraft Seat button. To add services to your order, you need to perform the following steps:
- Select the section you are interested in.
- Select the desired segment and passenger, after which you will see a list of services available for purchase.
Adding an ancillary service.
After clicking the Buy button, the amount to be paid and the total price of the order are recalculated.
The price of the ordered service is fixed in the details of the price.
Displaying the price of the ancillary service in the price details.
Displaying the price of the ancillary service in the price details.
There are services that are applied not to one segment, but directly to the whole destination, most often such services are found on transfer flights. Such services have a special feature (exclamation mark). The price of such service will depend on the number of segments to which it is attached.
A service that applies immediately to the whole destination. To cancel an ancillary service that has not been booked yet, click on the cross next to the name of the added ancillary service or click on the name of the selected service, then a pop-up window will show detailed information about the selected service, as well as the option to cancel the service will appear in the lower right corner. Note: in case, while choosing a service, the airline does not confirm it immediately (for example, GDS returns the HN - holding need status instead of HK), then the inscription "Please note, that some of the chosen services are waiting for confirmation from the airline" will appear and the button Specify service status will appear (see the screenshot below). The button is available once per hour. After clicking the button, the system will update the order, and if the service status is changed to confirmed, you can pay for it. It is not possible to pay for the service until it is confirmed.
Services that require confirmation. After issuing a ticket, you can return the ancillary service, but it works only when the automatic ticket return is enabled, in the manual mode, the refund of ancillary services is impossible. The original price for the service is available to the user without any markups. If the ticket was paid via a personal account, after a successful refund of the service money for the service will be automatically returned to the personal account. Ticket can be returned only after the return of the ancillary service.
Service refund button.
Manager's block.
It is possible to execute ancillary services both before and after ticketing. If the client has decided to make an ancillary service in the order already issued, it is necessary to make an additional payment by the order.
There is an access to the seat selection both before and after the booking. On the screenshot below, you can see the process of choosing a seat and the display of its price.
Seat selection.
Adding descriptions to services To add a detailed description to a service, go to Site management → Language resources and add new aliases for each service and descriptions (for each language separately) in translations for them. A tag for translation of the name is "7R:03C:1PC10KG UP TO 203CM", where 7R is the IATA code of the airline, 03C - RFISC of the service, and 1PC10KG UP TO 203CM is the service name of the service. A tag for translation of the detailed description of the service will be " 7R:03C:1PC10KG UP TO 203CM:RULES_TEXT".
Indicator that the service has a detailed description
Detailed description
Setting up the module In order to configure the module you need to go to: Product control → Avia tickets → Additional services → Airline additional services.
Ancillary services settings Available settings: Packages for additional services search - the setting is responsible for therequisite packages in which the search will be performed. Options for selection: All - service search will be carried out for all packages; Selected - service search will be performed only by the selected packages; All except - service search will be carried out by all packages except the specified ones. Allow the purchase of several bags of baggage for one passenger - the setting allows you to buy several bags of the same type of baggage. Allow services with type C - Services with type C will be available on the booking form. Before enabling the settings, it is necessary to coordinate the possibility of online booking of services with type C with the GDS, as the GDS does not guarantee that the calculation of such services will always work correctly and sustainably. Service markup - the setting allows you to add a certain fee from each sold ancillary service. Percent or fixed size in the specified currency, set in this setting, will apply to paid additional services. The setting applies only to paid services. Filtering ancillary services - this setting allows you to configure the display of ancillary services on the form. Filtering ancillary services If it is necessary to display only certain ancillary services on the form, you can do it with the help of the Airline and RFISC Filter. This setting is located at Product control → Avia Tickets → Additional Services → Additional Airline Services. If no filter is set, all ancillary services received from GDS will be displayed on the form. To output a particular ancillary service, you need to know its unique number (RFISC). The filter is set in AL-RFISC format, where AL is the IATA code of the airline, RFISC is the unique number of the service. For example, UT-B01;SU-OAQ. Please note that if you have filters for a certain number of ancillary services for only one airline, for other airlines, the filter will remove all additional services until you have a filter for that airline as well. Ancillary services sales report Чтобы получить отчет по дополнительным услугам, зайдите в раздел настроек Statistics and reports → Air order reports. Select "Electronic documents" report type. It will reflect the statistics on sales of ancillary services linked to air tickets.
Displaying the report.
Adding information on airline ancillary services to itinerary receipt
To add information on additional services of the airline to the itinerary receipt, you should insert the variable %GDS_SERVICE_INFO% in the itinerary receipt template. Information on additional services of the airline, to which the variable refers, is formed in the template Documents for additional services in the section Notifications and documents → Documents → Documents for avia. Variables for airline ancillary services for the template Documents for additional services:
%GDS_SERVICE_PRICE% - Total price of all services
%GDS_SERVICE_ITEM_DOC_NUMBER% - EMD number for this service
%GDS_SERVICE_ITEM_PRICE% - The cost of one service
%GDS_SERVICE_ITEM_NAME% - Service Name*
%GDS_SERVICE_ITEM_RFISC% - RFISC Code
- If this is an aircraft seat reservation, there will also be the selected number.