Beginning of a new era: airlines all set to fly high with paperless tickets

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New Delhi, May 31: Even as the all the carriers in the world move over to e-ticketing on Sunday, not everyone is happy as some expect countries like India would be negatively impacted by this.

The move, spearheaded by the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association (IATA), have resulted seen most of the Indian carriers reaching the 99%-mark in removing paper tickets and have agreed that by June 1 they will be working completely on e-tickets.

In 2004, the IATA board of governors and its annual general meeting—which represents some 250 airlines— asked IATA to lead its Simplifying the Business Programme. Simplifying the business consists of five key projects—100% e-tickets by end 2007 (this was postponed to May 31, 2008), Common Use Self Service check-in, bar coded boarding passes, RFID for aviation and IATA e-freight.

The main justification for the move is that it would lead to huge cost saving to airlines —allowing them to offer cheaper tickets to passengers. Other benefits to the passengers include the increased flexibility and ease of use, no fear of losing a ticket, easier for refunds, cancellations and updates. In addition, it also opens a whole range of possibilities like self-service kiosks, manage my booking, seat changes, etc.

The benefits to the airlines include the huge cost savings. Electronic tickets save an estimated $5 to $9 per ticket or around $3 billion per year (this number does not include the paper saving but only the savings on distribution and other processes). The tickets are almost impossible to counterfeit, allow better self-service kiosks facilitation at airports, easier interlining and there is increased data security and speed.

Benefits to the travel agent include less paper work and back office operations, fewer disputes and the ease to dispatch to customer via email. Another major benefit of e-tickets is that it help saves around 5 billion A4 sheets per year and twice that amount in back office operations that are required for paper tickets. A lesser known fact is that due to the special carbonised paper used by paper tickets they were more difficult to destroy but e-tickets – even if printed out – can be recycled if needed.