According to an official press release shared with PR Newswire, Spain’s third-largest airline, Air Europa, has partnered with TravelX to launch the world’s first series of NFT flight tickets. Ten of these 'NFTickets' will be sold for a special flight from Madrid to Miami on 29 November 2022. The first ticket was auctioned on 11 April, and the rest of the tickets will be up for sale every 2 weeks.

"Innovation is in our DNA, we have been pioneers in applying new technologies within our industry and it cannot be different with NFTs, which could be the next step in the travel industry. We are proud to be the first airline to adopt blockchain technology for inventory management and distribution. We're excited to see where this could take travel as a whole and how it could improve customer experience," said Bernardo Botella, Global Sales Director at Air Europa to PR Newswire.

The NFTicket series follows the concept of "10 artists, 10 journeys," wherein each NFTicket will be creatively designed by an artist, thus amalgamating art with travel. You can think of the NFTicket as a rare card, only one unique piece of which will ever exist. How will this tokenised ticket work? Let’s get right to it.

What is NFT ticketing?

NFTs are digital tokens powered by blockchain technology and are therefore tamper-proof. The NFT is coded to register the details of every new owner straight onto the blockchain. They can also be stored in wallets and be accessed from anywhere in the world.

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They can either be programmed to sell at a fixed price or be auctioned online. NFTs are irrevocable as they are built on a blockchain but can be sold to other users through an NFT marketplace.

In the case of flight ticketing, airlines (in this case Air Europa) can mint a fixed number of tokens on the blockchain and put them up for sale on the partner platform (in this case, TravelX).

When a blockchain user makes the purchase, the ticketing cost goes to the platform host. This activates a smart contract that issues a tokenised ticket to the buyer and pays the requisite amount to the ticket issuer.

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"It's very exciting to give birth to a new kind of NFT, minted on Algorands carbon-negative blockchain. We will blend the best of the traditional NFT but add real-world application and experience. This provides a better flight ticket that travellers can easily manage and trade from their blockchain wallet, combined with a new kind of collectible art piece. We believe NFTickets will be the perfect fusion of art, travel, and technology," said Facundo Diaz, co-founder of TravelX to PR Newswire.

What problems does NFT ticketing solve?

Tokenisation of tickets presents several benefits to both the buyer and the ticket issuer:

Maintaining Records: Blockchain technology uses a concept called ‘finality’, which means once data is added to the blockchain, it cannot be reversed or modified. This could help the airline maintain a permanent and indestructible record of its ticket sales.

High Efficiency: The cost and time associated with the issuance of conventional tickets is much higher than minting tokenised versions on a blockchain. Tokenising a ticket takes only a minute. Moreover, the NFTicket collection is built on the Algorand blockchain, which allows NFT creation for as little as 10 cents as opposed to other blockchains that push the same cost to anywhere between $50 and $800.

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Also, the Algorand blockchain can process 1,200 transactions per second (TPS) and will soon touch 3,000 TPS. Its official website claims that its next technological deployment will push it to over 45,000 TPS, making it “more scalable than VISA.” These features will allow Air Europa to monetise tickets at a lower price in high volumes.

Loyalty Programs: Issuers can also program NFT tickets to reward loyal customers. If the purchaser has collected a certain number of NFT tickets, they can be appreciated with complimentary meals/rewards/miles.

How can users purchase NFTickets?

The 10 tokenised tickets will be auctioned fortnightly on the TravelX platform. Of the 10, the first one was sold on 11 April 2022, for a bid amount of 1.002 USD Coins (USDC). The USDC is pegged 1:1 with the US Dollar.

The purchase process is simple and only requires 3 steps:

In order to purchase an NFTicket, you must own an Algorand wallet. If you don’t have one you can create it. The options are ALGO Signer, My ALGO and Pera ALGO. (MetaMask wallets are also compatible.)

Before you can start bidding, you must link your MetaMask or Algorand wallet with the TravelX platform.

You can bid only using USDC and no other forms of cryptocurrency or fiat currency.

What do users get upon purchasing an NFTicket?

The owner of an NFTicket will be entitled to a fixed set of benefits:

Each of these 10 NFTs is a business-class ticket for an Air Europa flight from Madrid, Spain, to Miami in the USA which is scheduled on 29 November 2022.

NFTicket owners will also be able to attend and participate in the Miami Art Week, where the creation of the world’s first set of NFT tickets will be celebrated as a moment in history.

Each ticket will be artistically conceptualised by a renowned artist, thus adding further value to its rarity. Moreover, it will become a collectable as these 10 NFTickets will represent a turning point in history.

First Published:Apr 19, 2022 8:59 PM IST