Fly away without a ticket

HAMBURG (DPA) - A growing number of airline passengers are boarding planes

these days without a ticket.

Not that these people are stowaways but rather customers who have chosen to book

an e-ticket instead of the traditional paper one.

Paper-free flying works very simply: the customer books by telephone or Internet,

either direct with the flight company or through a travel agency, using his

frequent-flyer or credit card number. He is then given his booking number by

telephone, post, fax or email.

The next step at the airport depends upon whether the passenger has luggage to

check in. If yes, he shows the flight confirmation and his booking number at the

check-in desk, hands over his luggage and receives his boarding pass in his hand.

If a person is planning to travel with hand luggage only, then he inserts his customer

or credit card in the slot of a check-in machine and receives a freshly printed out

boarding pass in a matter of seconds. This can be done when flying with Lufthansa

from any German airport, Amsterdam, Brussels, Milan, London-Heathrow, Lyon, Paris-

Charles de Gaulle or Vienna. German-BA offers a similar service for any domestic flight

within Germany and between Germany and London.

United Airlines pioneered paper-free flying around the world by offering electronic

tickets as far back as 1994. The US airline conducted almost two-thirds (65 percent)

of its business last year using e-tickets while its competitor, American Airlines, arrived

at a figure of 50 percent.

Lufthansa has registered the trademark “Etix” for its electronic tickets and Germany’s

largest airline now boasts 61 Etix destinations in 34 different countries. Thierry

Antinori of Lufthansa in Frankfurt explained that around 47 percent of domestic flight

custom makes use of the paper-free system.

The virtual flight ticket presents passengers with a whole range of advantages, for

example, the ticket can neither be stolen or lost.

Alterations can be carried out quickly and painlessly with a single telephone call. In

addition, if the passenger is traveling with only hand luggage, then he can avoid the

queues at the check-in desk.

Paper-free flying does have its disadvantages. According to a survey by the US

National Business Travel Association, between eight and 10 percent of passengers

said they felt uncomfortable traveling without a ticket in their hand.

There have also been a number of cases where passengers’ bookings have simply

disappeared within the computer system. Around 53 percent of those asked said they

had also experienced problems when “interlining”, changing to a different airline

company for part of their journey.

The next generation of e-tickets in the form of smartcards is still on the drawing

board. These would be credit-card-sized cards with an integrated microchip which

contain not only all the relevant ticket information but also do away with the need for

a boarding pass.

It should also be possible for the card to permit access to lounge and duty-free

shopping areas and monitor the passenger’s accumulation of bonus air-miles. In the

event of the passenger missing his connecting flight, the smart card could be used to

instantly book a seat on an alternative flight.