Come Sunday, paper air tickets to fly into history

Mumbai: Four years ago, the International Air Travel Association (IATA) decided to switch to e-ticketing from June 2008. Saturday will be the last day in the life of traditional tickets with multiple layers and colours.
The trade body, which represents 240 airlines that account for 94% of global air traffic, says the move will save up to $3 billion (Rs12,840 crore) a year, a considerable amount especially for an ailing industry.
It will also save some trees, although not as much as it should.
“Significantly, e-ticketing will help save five billion A-4 size sheets (or paper) a year for the industry,” says Ankur Bhatia, executive director of travel firm Bird Group and managing director of ticketing software company Amadeus India. This saving will be offset to an extent by the fact that passengers will still need to have a copy of their tickets printed out on plain paper.
E-ticketing, Bhatia adds, throws opens a range of possibilities such as self-service kiosks.
IATA, which used to send standardized ticket books to agents globally, has stopped printing them, saying this will cut down processing costs, allow selling through various channels and reduce possibilities of fraud. The books were printed under security in China to avoid manipulation.
“For travel agents, e-ticketing eliminates all the constraints linked to paper. No more paperstock to manage or ticket printers to maintain,” IATA said in a statement.
Indian carriers have already switched to e-ticketing, which was initially made popular in the country by low-fare airlines that were adopting all measures possible to cut costs.
The transition has not been without hurdles. Travel agents are still not ready to accept this change and certain small airports are still not capable of handling e-tickets, says Ajay Prakash, national general secretary of the Travel Agents Federation of India, or Tafi.
30/05/08 P.R. Sanjai/Anushree Chandran/Livemint

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General May 2008