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Airline tickets fly into history books
By Julie Clothier for CNN
Tuesday, June 6, 2006 Posted: 1529 GMT (2329 HKT)
(CNN) -- Old-fashioned airline tickets will be relegated to the history books next year if an industry lobby group gets its way.
Currently, almost 48 percent of tickets worldwide are electronic but the International Air Transport Association (IATA) wants all paper tickets phased out in 2007. The association represents 265 airlines accounting for 94 percent of international air traffic.
Speaking at the World Air Transport Summit in Paris, IATA director general and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said in his state of the industry address that one of the biggest challenges for airlines was the 100 percent adoption of e-ticketing.
"Today, nearly one out of every two tickets issued is an e-ticket. But to achieve our 70 percent target for 2006 we need more speed," Bisignani told industry representatives. Bisignani said IATA would invest $10 million to ensure all member carriers adopt e-ticketing, which it believes could save the industry more than $3 billion.
An electronic ticket (ET) holds the information previously held on a paper ticket. It requires a new database, integrated with the airline's passenger service systems, which interfaces with all partners for real time processing of passengers.
During the past 12 months, IATA airlines issued 315 million paper ticket, which cost $10 compared to process compared to e-tickets, which cost $1, according to the IATA. Of all tickets issued in the Americas, 68.6 percent are e-tickets, compared with just 6.7 percent of those in the Middle East.
E-ticketing is one of the key components of the association's "Simplifying the Business" initiative, which aims to make air transport more convenient for passengers and more cost efficient for carriers The initiative also includes adopting bar coded boarding passes, luggage tracking technology and self-service check-in machines.
Advocates of e-tickets say that as well as cutting costs, they also make it easier for customers to make last-minute changes to their itinerary, makes check-in easier and avoids the issue of lost tickets. For travel agents, benefits including eliminating ticket printers, maintenance and ticket distribution.
Bisignani said e-freight, where the movement of cargo is all done electronically, is a bigger challenge than e-ticketing. He said airlines were "sinking in a sea of paperwork," but eliminating it was not entirely in carriers' control and that government inaction was holding back progress in trade efficiency. "Not a single government has all the legislation in place to support e-freight. In today's Internet world, this is an embarrassment. Governments must not block a responsible industry driving efficiency."
Bisignani said of all goods traded internationally, 35 percent were transported on IATA-member aircraft.
By Julie Clothier for CNN
Tuesday, June 6, 2006 Posted: 1529 GMT (2329 HKT)
The IATA wants all paper tickets phased out by the end of 2007.
(CNN) -- Old-fashioned airline tickets will be relegated to the history books next year if an industry lobby group gets its way.
Currently, almost 48 percent of tickets worldwide are electronic but the International Air Transport Association (IATA) wants all paper tickets phased out in 2007. The association represents 265 airlines accounting for 94 percent of international air traffic.
Speaking at the World Air Transport Summit in Paris, IATA director general and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said in his state of the industry address that one of the biggest challenges for airlines was the 100 percent adoption of e-ticketing.
"Today, nearly one out of every two tickets issued is an e-ticket. But to achieve our 70 percent target for 2006 we need more speed," Bisignani told industry representatives. Bisignani said IATA would invest $10 million to ensure all member carriers adopt e-ticketing, which it believes could save the industry more than $3 billion.
An electronic ticket (ET) holds the information previously held on a paper ticket. It requires a new database, integrated with the airline's passenger service systems, which interfaces with all partners for real time processing of passengers.
During the past 12 months, IATA airlines issued 315 million paper ticket, which cost $10 compared to process compared to e-tickets, which cost $1, according to the IATA. Of all tickets issued in the Americas, 68.6 percent are e-tickets, compared with just 6.7 percent of those in the Middle East.
E-ticketing is one of the key components of the association's "Simplifying the Business" initiative, which aims to make air transport more convenient for passengers and more cost efficient for carriers The initiative also includes adopting bar coded boarding passes, luggage tracking technology and self-service check-in machines.
Advocates of e-tickets say that as well as cutting costs, they also make it easier for customers to make last-minute changes to their itinerary, makes check-in easier and avoids the issue of lost tickets. For travel agents, benefits including eliminating ticket printers, maintenance and ticket distribution.
Bisignani said e-freight, where the movement of cargo is all done electronically, is a bigger challenge than e-ticketing. He said airlines were "sinking in a sea of paperwork," but eliminating it was not entirely in carriers' control and that government inaction was holding back progress in trade efficiency. "Not a single government has all the legislation in place to support e-freight. In today's Internet world, this is an embarrassment. Governments must not block a responsible industry driving efficiency."
Bisignani said of all goods traded internationally, 35 percent were transported on IATA-member aircraft.
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Oh well, no great drama as long as it arrives sometime next I am OK.
