When a flight is booked on my portal, does the ticket get issued straight away or do I have to issue it myself?

In most cases yes, the ticket is issued automatically as soon as the payment goes through, but it does depend on the airline and on the supplier sitting behind that particular fare. There is no single answer that covers every route you will sell.

The normal flow is that your customer pays, the booking request goes to the airline, and the confirmation comes back with the airline reference and the ticket number. At that point the e-ticket is ready in your portal and can be emailed to the passenger without you touching anything. Low cost airlines almost always work this way, because for them the booking and the ticket are the same thing.

The exception is some full service and consolidator fares, which come back as a confirmed booking with a ticketing deadline rather than a ticket. There the issuing is a second step, and depending on how your account is set up it either happens automatically or you click to issue from the booking screen. A booking can also sit as pending if the supplier wants to recheck the fare or your payment needs review. In those cases the portal shows the status clearly, and the rule to follow is simple, do not treat a booking as done until a ticket number is showing against it.

Before you go live, ask us to confirm which of your connected flight suppliers issue instantly and which ones hand back a deadline, and make sure your staff know to watch the booking status rather than assuming every paid booking is ticketed.