E-Ticketing

• An e-ticket (electronic ticket) is a paperless electronic document used for ticketing passengers, particularly in the commercial airline industry. Virtually all major airlines now use this method of ticketing.

E-ticket (electronic ticket)

How e-ticketing works?

• When a customer books a flight by telephone or using the Web, the details of the reservation are stored in a computer.

• The customer can request that a hardcopy confirmation be sent by postal mail, but it is not needed at the check-in desk.

• A confirmation number is assigned to the passenger, along with the flight number(s), date(s), departure location(s), and destination location(s).

• When checking in at the airport, the passenger simply presents positive identification.

• Then necessary boarding passes are issued, and the passenger can check luggage and proceed through security to the gate area.

• The principal advantage of e-ticketing is the fact that it reduces booking expense by eliminating the need for printing and mailing paper documents.

• Another advantage is that it eliminates the possibility of critical documents getting lost in the mail or being sent to the wrong address.

Advantages• Convenience/Secure

Unlike the traveller who leaves his ticket at the office, e-tickets are impossible to "lose" because they reside in a computer database network. For this reason, they are hard to steal, as well. Passengers typically print out copies of their e-ticket, including confirmation e-mails, itineraries and other documents. All those documents can be replaced by pulling them out of the computer again, and only a person with the proper identification can actually use the e-ticket. With the old paper tickets, passengers who lost or forgot them might be charged a fee for the airline to make new ones. In some cases, passengers were required to buy new tickets at full-price.

• Flexibilityeliminates the possibility of critical documents getting lost in the mail or being sent to the wrong address.A passenger also may find it easier to make changes to their travel itinerary using an e-ticket, as the travel agency or airline need only update their database with the requested changes rather than incur the expense of physically issuing a new ticket.

• Costreduces booking expense by eliminating the need for printing and mailing paper documents

Disadvantages• A computer crash could cause a passenger's

reservation and other information to simply vanish

• frequent flyers, such as business travelers, might make last-minute changes to their plans and forget to use the original e-tickets or apply their value to another flight

• e-ticketing also could make some jobs, such as those at travel agencies and airline reservations desks, obsolete, adding to unemployment

• e-tickets and the procedures associated with purchasing and using them make it harder to detect risks

The Future of E-Tickets

• It is safe to say airline e-tickets are here to stay. They already make up a majority of the market, and the industry is committed to increasing that percentage. Airlines are moving toward a "self-service model," with passengers researching, booking, buying, checking in and boarding virtually without airline assistance.

• It is believe that all the ticketing procedures will be done by e-commerce in the future.