Starting Sunday, June 1, 2008, the 240+ airlines members of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) will not anymore issue paper tickets for the flights they operate (94% of worldwide passengers air traffic).

To get a boarding pass, only a passport and a reservation number will be needed. The removal of paper tickets was initiated in 2004, and is now finalized (paper tickets already issued may still be used until May 31, 2009): it will definitely improve lots of procedures, such as ticket exchange, modification, or cancellation. For all the travelers, it will bring a lot of advantages, from not being afraid of losing their tickets to checking-in online from their house or office, and print themselves their boarding passes. This was already existing but today is a new step, there will not be any other solution. E-ticketing will represent (and already is) a substantial economy for airlines: up to $3 billion per year (see IATA data below).

E-ticketing goes 100%

The industry is at 100% ET. At midnight around the world on Saturday night 31 May 2008, travel agents stopped issuing IATA neutral paper tickets.

The four year ET project has been the flagship of the StB programme ever since its start at the June 2004 IATA AGM, offering the industry savings of US$ 3 Billion and huge benefits of convenience to passengers, agents and airlines.

Source: IATA

Since it has been implemented, e-Ticketing never stopped growing. IATA fixed the targeted objectives in 2004 so that 40% of the tickets would be electronic by the end of 2005, 70% by the end of 2006, and 80% by April 2007. On June 4, 2007, IATA extended the 100% e-Ticket deadline to May 31, 2008. The ET penetration graph shows the evolution of e-Ticketing by world area (the data is updated at the end of each month to reflect transactions for the previous month, source: IATA).

Air France: e-Ticket and even further!

Air France announced recently that it will implement a cellphone-boarding pass, starting this June. Air France will offer this new service to passengers traveling between Paris and Amsterdam (with no transfer).

The boarding pass will be included in a text message (SMS), multimedia message (MMS), or in an email sent on a cellphone (depending on the cellphone characteristics). Passengers will first have to connect on http://mobile.airfrance.com, and will be able to choose their seat. Once the procedure is finished, they will then receive the information on their cellphone. The message sent by the airline will contain a barcode, and all information needed to board… One step beyond!

References

  • Article : Exit le papier, les billets d’avion deviennent tous électroniques, Le Monde, May 31, 2008 : here (subscription needed)
  • Website : International Air Transport Association, IATA : here