Companies Create Private Blockchain for Settlement of Direct Ticket Sales
ARLINGTON, Va. – Jan. 9, 2019 – Airlines Reporting Corp. (ARC) is pleased to announce the successful completion of a joint proof of concept (PoC) to determine the viability of using blockchain technology, with the ARC settlement system, to facilitate the reporting and settlement of United Airlines tickets. To enable the proof of concept, ARC partnered with Blockskye, a leader in providing blockchain solutions to the travel and entertainment industries.
“ARC is committed to leading the air travel industry in the exploration of new technologies that have the potential to deliver options and business value to the global air travel community. We are actively working to explore blockchain’s potential across all of ARC’s product offerings, especially our world-class settlement system,” said ARC’s Vice President and Chief Information Officer Dickie Oliver. “In the case of direct or indirect ticket sales, we believe blockchain has the potential to provide a secure, distributed and immutable transaction record that will improve upon business processes that exist today.”
The proof of concept consisted of an end-to-end test that utilized the ARC private blockchain to report and settle United tickets. ARC’s secure system tracked ticket lifecycles from issuance through settlement and identified all transaction modifications through smart contracts.
“This PoC has allowed us to demonstrate the innovative capabilities that this technology enables, but more importantly, to simplify the payment and booking process for the corporate travelers and their employers. Time-consuming processes such as receipt collection for expense reports can be greatly improved, which will give travelers more time to be productive,” said Jeff Christensen, managing director of distribution and ancillary pricing at United Airlines.
ARC is working with United Airlines and Blockskye to test this technology with one of the airline’s corporate customers. As this pilot proves to be successful, ARC will offer this capability to other airlines.
“Because ARC leads the way at the epicenter of the U.S. settlement system, any transformative, industry-wide technology will need to engage their proven leadership. We are excited to bring our industry knowledge and our team’s development skills to this transformative project, focusing initially on corporate solutions,” said Brook Armstrong, CEO and co-founder of Blockskye.
About ARC
An industry leader in air travel distribution and intelligence, ARC settled $88.5 billion in ticket transactions in 2017 between airlines and travel agencies, representing more than 287 million passenger trips. ARC provides flexible distribution solutions, innovative technology and access to the world’s most comprehensive air ticket transaction data, helping the global air travel community connect, grow and thrive. For more information, please visit www.arccorp.com.
About United Airlines
United Airlines and United Express operate approximately 4,800 flights a day to 353 airports across five continents. In 2018, United and United Express operated more than 1.7 million flights carrying more than 158 million customers. United is proud to have the world’s most comprehensive route network, including U.S. mainland hubs in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Newark/New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. United operates 770 mainline aircraft and the airline’s United Express carriers operate 559 regional aircraft. The airline is a founding member of Star Alliance, which provides service to 193 countries via 28 member airlines. For more information, visit united.com, follow @United on Twitter or connect on Facebook. The common stock of United’s parent, United Continental Holdings, Inc., is traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol “UAL.”
About Blockskye
Blockskye provides inventory booking and transaction management solutions for the travel and entertainment industries using blockchain and the ethereum core framework. For more information, write [email protected].