Paper Airline Tickets...on their way out??

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Airline tickets fly into history books




By Julie Clothier for CNN
Tuesday, June 6, 2006 Posted: 1529 GMT (2329 HKT)

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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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This was the voting up to now

From the poll attached to the story...

Which do you prefer to have when you travel?
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An e-ticket: 74%
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A paper ticket: 26%
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This QuickVote is not scientific and reflects the opinions of only those Internet users who have chosen to participate. The results cannot be assumed to represent the opinions of Internet users in general, nor the public as a whole. The QuickVote sponsor is not responsible for content, functionality or the opinions
 
Nobby said:
What are they?

When you deal with the officious, inane, stupid Phillippine security officials who will only let people with a valid air ticket into the airport and they recognise paper tickets a lot faster than e-tickets (and sometimes cause a huge ruckus if you get a particularly stupid one who insists it isn't a 'real ticket').:p
 
When computers are down
When you need to make a change and your at an airport with no agent for the airline the ticket was issued on
When you want to skip a flight (tear out the coupon on paper ticket)
etc
 
I would say that the benefits of e-tickets outweigh any drawbacks.

e.g. purchasing a DONE4 in BKK ( for example ), not having to have a paper ticket shipped to Australia or spending a day in BKK to collect a ticket

Also, purchasing tickets from places such as TIP becomes easier :)

Dave
 
I would much prefer etickets - one less thing to worry about. I wonder how jurisdictions that need to see that you have a return ticket out of there will cope with this? Also had an experience at NOU where there was a large crowd at the airport and the local gendarmes were not allowing anyone access to the terminal without a passpot and a ticket. How do you convince a French gendarme that you really need to catch the QF big bird back to SYD?
 
Robert Barlow said:
I would much prefer etickets - one less thing to worry about. I wonder how jurisdictions that need to see that you have a return ticket out of there will cope with this? Also had an experience at NOU where there was a large crowd at the airport and the local gendarmes were not allowing anyone access to the terminal without a passpot and a ticket. How do you convince a French gendarme that you really need to catch the QF big bird back to SYD?

You need to take a printout of the eticket. If you don't have one or lost it, then can cause big problems for you since you then need to find a computer with access to the relevant system to view the eticket. You might think this is no problem with viewmytrip etc, but some airlines don't link in and if the relevant airline counter isnt open can cause a headache (read get taken away for interrogation and denied access until you can prove it). This is one area where paper tickets are preferred.
 
Kiwi Flyer said:
You need to take a printout of the eticket. If you don't have one or lost it, then can cause big problems for you since you then need to find a computer with access to the relevant system to view the eticket. You might think this is no problem with viewmytrip etc, but some airlines don't link in and if the relevant airline counter isnt open can cause a headache (read get taken away for interrogation and denied access until you can prove it). This is one area where paper tickets are preferred.

Good advice, Kiwi Flyer. I always take a printout of the tax invoice for tax reasons and carry it with me when I travel just in case there are any problems. I also save the emailed eticket and tax invoice in a file on my computer. I suppose in the electronic era, I just can't trust the machines to the extent that I don't feel the need to have a paper backup
 
One time in the rush to "get on the next plane to XYZ - do not pass go, do not collect $200", my ticket had not been issued until I was at the airport and waiting at the check-in desk. After checking me in, the QF check-in agent very kindly took me to the ticket counter and asked them to print me a copy of the e-ticket receipt so I could carry it with me. She obviously knew the importance of carrying ticket evidence on an around-the-world trip.
 
NM - I have had a similar experience. Arrived at BNK to fly to SYD on an e-ticket. It had not been ticketed and the travel itinerary sent to me by the government agency that I was contracted to was as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. Out came the plastic and one full return economy airfare later, I was on the aircraft. It took two months to get the refund from the agency which had not ticketed the booking. However, if asked what is my preference: paper ticket or e-ticket, I would have tosay e-ticket.
 
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Been zipping around the LOTFAP for a week; the ex CMB DONE4 tickets are getting stapled to the AA boarding passes. Need to be very protective.

The staff are ok, very adept at unpicking the staple with there fingers...:shock:

Still, while the original wad of 26 printed cardboard vouchers looked impressive it soom lost it's shine. :-|

I'd be happy to travel on an E-Ticket in future. :cool:
 
I prefer the E-ticket purely for the convenience. It's one less thing you have to worry about finding when you reach the front of the queue.
 
serfty said:
Been zipping around the LOTFAP for a week; the ex CMB DONE4 tickets are getting stapled to the AA boarding passes. Need to be very protective.

The staff are ok, very adept at unpicking the staple with there fingers...:shock:

Still, while the original wad of 26 printed cardboard vouchers looked impressive it soom lost it's shine. :-|

I'd be happy to travel on an E-Ticket in future. :cool:
Agree with everything you said. I've had more than one check-in agent comment on my thick wad of tickets, then proceed to rifle through them to see where I'm going.

E-tickets would have saved many anxious moments though - having to pick up the paper tickets at Colombo airport in the middle of the night while my flight was in transit was very nerve-wracking. Too much chance of something going wrong for my very-risk-averse liking. If the tickets had not been delivered to the airport or could not be located I would have been in a huge amount of trouble. Much easier to have it all electronic.
 
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There is one area where I have found paper useful

A couple of weeks ago I had my YY ex-TIP ticket reisssued by BA so that I could do LHR-HKG-MEL-SYD rather than LHR-SIN-SYD . When I got the paper tickets I noticed that

(1) for the inbound, they had put an X rather than an O for MEL on ther way back and
(2) had shneakily added an endorsement "valid BA/QF only"

If I had had an e-ticket I might well have missed this. Since I noticed it, with some hassles, I have managed to get the ticket reissued without the endorsement, but they have made another change which needs fixing ( again which I wouldnt have noticed on an eticket) in that the fare basis for MEL-SYD and LHR-TIP is now showing J rather than F ; the ticket will be heading back to North Sydney again on monday

This is one time when having paper has been useful though normally I much prefer electronic tickets

Dave
 
I travel to many remote places where paper tickets rule supreme as there are no computers to speak of.

New Guinea, Zanzibar, Burma, Laos, Suriname, Nepal, Botswana etc .. you are not going to see e-tickets in 10 years there, much less 1 year this article speaks of. :cool:
 
Yesterday I booked a SIN-BNE-SYD-PER-SIN flight from the QF Singapore website and not an e-ticket in sight.

Apparently the paper ticket has been mailed to me and I should receive in 2-3 days.
 
JohnK said:
Yesterday I booked a SIN-BNE-SYD-PER-SIN flight from the QF Singapore website and not an e-ticket in sight.

Apparently the paper ticket has been mailed to me and I should receive in 2-3 days.

Why couldn't QF give an e-ticket for that simple itin? Or did you select to get a paper ticket?
 
Kiwi Flyer said:
Why couldn't QF give an e-ticket for that simple itin? Or did you select to get a paper ticket?
No definitely did not select a paper ticket. E-ticket is much simpler for me. I am actually a little confused as to the excuse I was given when i called QF as I have heard conflicting stories here previously.

When I asked why this was not an e-ticket as I provided my e-mail address, when it was required, I was told that all tickets from QF Singapore website are paper tickets. :confused: Oh well, no great drama as long as it arrives sometime next I am OK.

You wouldn't want to do the booking 1 or 2 days before going overseas.
 
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