Popular Russian airline S7 has launched a new blockchain for issuing flight tickets to passengers, in one of the first applications of its kind to go live.
The country’s largest airline, in partnership with one of the leading Russian private banks, developed an ethereum blockchain for issuing passenger tickets, which reportedly handled its first customers this week.
S7 developed the project in conjunction with its ticketing subsidiary S7 Ticket, with lending support from private financiers Alfa-Bank, in creating the vision behind the blockchain application.
The application’s launch marks another significant milestone among business use cases deployed on the blockchain, as the technology continues to gain recognition for its potential.
Airlines and agents typically take about a week to arrange settlements today, according to industry analysts. The blockchain platform could deliver settlement times that are virtually instant, for faster execution.
The platform has been designed to specifically minimize transaction times, making settlement costs significantly cheaper for both the airline and their agents.
By streamlining processes throughout the ticketing chain, the blockchain solution looks set to reduce administrative costs between the counterparties.
The blockchain will also handle payments, and deduct agents’ commission from ticket prices at source, smoothing the process of serving the company’s millions of passengers annually, as of this week.
The ambitious project marks one of the first blockchain applications of its kind developed for the airline ticketing industry, often touted as a likely beneficiary of the technology.
Blockchain technology can deliver efficiency savings across a diverse range of industries, and many proof-of-concept developments are now moving into final testing and live phases for the first time.
Alongside the airline sector, other industries benefiting from blockchain developments range from agriculture, logistics, emergency aid relief, health care, gun licensing and municipal functions, insurance, and financial services.
It remains unclear whether the project has been developed on a public or private blockchain, but the results will be closely followed in the blockchain community.
The move follows a previous collaboration between S7 and Alfa-Bank, which was set up to explore smart contracts in recording and monitoring letters of credit.