The
IATA Travel Centre provides personalised advice for travel planning and trip preparation like passport, visa and health requirements, as well as airport customs, airport tax and currency rules for travelers across the globe. The
International Air Transport Association and the
Airline Reporting Corporation and the
Airline Training Council guide, train and certify consolidator, agency and airline personnel who will process booking orders and issue tickets for airline flights. The
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN Specialized Agency, is the global forum for civil aviation. Government regulators (usually called civil aviation authorities or administrations) in each country have oversight and also provide interface between air carriers and public consumers. Many Country or State Governments issue licenses like the
Air Travel Organizers License required in the United Kingdom or Seller Of Travel licenses required by some States in the USA. Organizations like the
Association of British Travel Agents ABTA and the
American Association of Travel Agents ASTA also watch over the industry and keep standards and mediate between industry and consumer.
Having worked with numerous airline consolidators and air ticket operators in 37 countries since 1998, the primary value of ATC Worldwide is clearinghouse. Experience has sorted the airline ticket resellers and discounters into the good and the not so good and the not so good are not here. The secondary value is website. Each of the companies we work with hold their own database of ticket prices for specific flights that they negotiated for with airlines. A unique Internet Booking Engine IBE is required to access the privately held fares for flights offered by each company. Those IBE have been organized into the most efficient array that Internet technology will allow to facilitate shopping. The tertiary value is lower pricing. Since ATC Worldwide earns a modest average of six Euro per ticket sold online, a greater portion of the negotiated discount from airline published fares is passed on to you.
Air ticket resellers or wholesalers or airline consolidators, in the main, are specialists. They usually buy tickets from air carriers on three pricing tiers for specific flight itineraries. Twenty seats are the norm for each itinerary on each date with four seats at lowest, seven seats at middle and nine seats at the higher price tier. As the lower priced seats are sold out, prices move up to the next tier and next again until all tickets are sold out. A shopper must then move on to use the IBE of another consolidator or discounter or agency to see if a lower priced seat remains available. Airlines always hold the option to accept any ticket order at any pricing tier and often do so to fill a multiple ticket booking.
Airline ticket discounters and major travel agencies, in the main, are generalists. They usually negotiate with air carriers for a broad range of reduced prices based upon their ability to sell above a preset minimum number of tickets per month for flights to many or all of that carriers destinations.
The Internet Booking Engines IBE at ATC Worldwide are programmed to access all of the foregoing fares plus any discounts currently offered by individual airlines. It is possible for all three types of discounts to become sold out for a specific flight itinerary on the dates you want to travel. In that unlikely but sad event, once you have burned up the IBE here and find no wholesale, reduced or discounted prices, you must shop at another website to see if a lower priced seat is available there. Please accept our best wishes and take them with you. Read more about the
airline consolidator Internet booking engines and how to shop them for lower fares.
A note to fare aware and date flexible flight shoppers: Airline ticket prices vary with time of day, day of week, holiday and season. The most expensive season to fly extends from 15 June through 15 September. Higher fares will also appear three days before and three days after each major holiday except for the Christmas through New Year season when higher fares begin to appear on 13 December and remain until 07 January. The lowest air ticket prices of each year are seen from 15 January through 15 March, The lowest airfares of each day are offered for flights that depart before 0800 and after 2000 hours. The lower flight prices of each week are offered on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and sometimes Saturday. Travel durations longer than thirty days are often more expensive than a trip of less than thirty days. (P.S. shop early in the day when possible)