E-ticketing: No more paper tickets after ’07

Come Jan. 1, 2008, traveling with paper tickets will be a thing of the past. This is because the International Air Transport Association (IATA) targets to achieve 40 percent e-ticketing in 2005, 70 percent e-ticketing in 2006, and 100 percent e-ticketing by end-2007. 

Every year, IATA processes 340 million paper tickets. Each paper ticket costs $10 to process, while it only costs $1 to process an e-ticket.  This is $9 saved for every e-ticket used. 

According to IATA, e-ticketing can generate $3 billion in savings for the industry each year.  For an industry that is expected to lose $7.4 billion in 2005 as a result of high fuel costs, every ounce of savings helps.

Besides airlines, e-ticketing also benefits both passengers and travel agents. For the traveler, IATA said it will be easier to handle changes in flight itinerary. 

Problems such as "lost tickets" will also be a thing of the past. It is also a more effective use of the Internet for booking travel and checking in for flights.

From the travel agent’s perspective, e-ticketing eliminates the cost of ticket printers, maintenance and ticket distribution. It also removes the cost and liability of ticket stock control.

IATA said it is possible to achieve 100 percent e-ticketing by end-2007. It conducted a survey of 400 airlines in April 2005 to assess their readiness for e-ticketing.

While only 35 percent of the airlines surveyed had some form of e-ticketing capability in place, these airlines accounted for 86 percent of the ticket volume.

In 2004, only 18.8 percent of all tickets handled by IATA’s billing settlement plan were electronic. As of August 2005, about 33 percent of tickets globally were e-tickets. In the Asia-Pacific, about 30 percent were e-tickets.

E-ticketing is one of the projects under IATA’s Simplifying the Business initiatives, which will generate $6.5 billion in savings for the industry. 

The other four projects are bar-coded boarding passes, radio frequency identification for baggage management, common-use, self-service kiosks for check-in, and paperless cargo or e-freight by 2010.