The end of the paper airline ticket
ISTANBUL -- While skyrocketing jet fuel prices have created a crisis of epic proportions in the airline industry, top airline executives from around the globe gathered in Istanbul last weekend for a ceremony commemorating a more positive milestone: the end of the paper airline ticket. At a time when airlines have raised fares or tacked on fees for everything from excess baggage to seat selection, the elimination of paper airline tickets stands to reduce airline costs by as much as $3 billion worldwide and cut the cost of issuing a ticket from $10 to $1, according to Bryan Wilson of the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
"If you have a paper ticket, it's time to donate it to a museum," said IATA CEO and Director General Giovanni Bisignani prior to the opening of the association's annual meeting. As of June 1, IATA will no longer supply paper ticket stock to 60,000 travel agencies in 125 countries around the world as it has done for decades.
Many American travelers may think that paper airline tickets are already extinct, as most U.S. airlines stopped issuing paper tickets for domestic flights some years ago. But in other parts of the world, and particularly for international itineraries involving multiple airlines, paper tickets are more common and it's taken 13 years from the time the first electronic ticket was issued in 1994 to the eradication of paper ticket stock issued by IATA. When IATA began its push for electronic ticketing in 2004 only 18% of airline tickets issued by IATA airlines worldwide were electronic.
But the acceptance of electronic tickets has not been an easy sell. In 1990, when I was tasked by United Airlines to help build a product to allow consumers to book their travel online, no one in the airline's management believed that paper tickets could disappear. "People need the security of a paper ticket," they insisted, even when I noted that travelers didn't need a paper document to rent a car or a hotel room.
Several years prior to the rise of the Internet, consumers were beginning to shop through proprietary online systems like CompuServe and Prodigy. Although these early online systems were quite rudimentary by today's standards, booking travel seemed like a natural online application. But it was also immediately evident that the paper airline ticket was a major barrier to online adoption and an expensive proposition for timely delivery.
In those days, most airline tickets were delivered by U.S. mail, purchased at an airline city ticket office, through a travel agent or at the airport. The unpredictable lead time necessary to deliver a ticket by mail limited the utility of the self-service booking tool, particularly for business travelers who tend towards last-minute purchases and itinerary changes.
We studied numerous ticketing options for United Airlines' first consumer online booking product, from overnight delivery to the establishment of a special airport pick-up counter for tickets booked online, but every method seemed cumbersome, potentially expensive and often unreliable, particularly for anyone attempting to travel less than one week after booking.
It took some time and convincing, but once airlines realized they could save money by eliminating paper and that consumer acceptance was high, self-service online booking tools and electronic tickets gained rapidly in popularity, at least in the U.S. But it took more than another decade for the industry to finally eliminate the need to operate separate paper and paperless systems simultaneously.
As the June 1st deadline approached, many major airlines were still issuing a small percentage of paper tickets, according to Wilson. For example, British Airways issued 790,000 airline tickets in March, of which 8,000 were paper.
You might be surprised to learn that newer or smaller airlines in many parts of the world, such as Kingfisher Airlines in India or Aerocondor Peru, actually went 100% electronic before most major carriers in the U.S. and Europe, according to Wilson. Many newer airlines have state-of-the-art business systems in place aimed specifically at processing electronic tickets.
The most challenging destinations for electronic ticketing are those small airports, in remote parts of the world, where there may be no electricity let alone a computer. In those places, an airline may print a copy of the passenger list at another locale and deliver it to the rustic airport so airline personnel can check off each passenger as they board the airplane, according to Wilson.
Of course paper tickets won't disappear immediately just because IATA stops issuing them. Theoretically, the traveler holding the last paper ticket issued has up to one year to commence their journey and another year to use the return ticket before that ticket is no longer valid. So it is possible a paper ticket could still be floating through the system until May 31, 2010.
In addition, not every airline is subject to IATA's electronic ticketing rules. The elimination of paper affects approximately 350 airlines which utilize 80 Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) clearinghouses covering 162 countries across the globe. The BSPs were established by IATA to manage the cash sales of airline tickets between travel agents and airlines.
Nostalgia aside, what's good for the airlines' bottom line is also good for travelers: Electronic tickets enable travelers to check-in for their flights at home and use self-service kiosks to print boarding passes and other documents at the airport. With an electronic ticket you no longer need to worry about misplacing your ticket or leaving it at home, and electronic tickets make itinerary changes and refunds easier and quicker to process. And the move to electronic tickets will spare the lives of 50,000 trees per year according to IATA. RIP, paper tickets.
Send David your feedback: David Grossman is a veteran business traveler and former airline industry executive. He writes a column every other week on topics of interest and concern to business travelers. E-mail him at travel@usatoday.com.