star1

Sometimes when I fly, I still see passengers who hand over the old style red carbon copy tickets. Does anyone here still have to use these, and why? Are there some tickets that must be issued this way? I would figure these had gone out a long time ago. Unless they're really trying to be Y2K ready...

BlondeBomber

If you travel to the the developing world you will see a lot of these tickets. I still use them quite a bit. Electronic tickets are not always easy to use if there is a problem on the airline that issued them and you have to go to another airline. Paper tickets (including the red carbon type) still have a place until everything becomes electronic and transferable--then watch what happens when the power goes off.

diver

Most of the airline ticket offices and travel agencies in Guam still use those tickets. I kind of like them. They are so hard to read that the gate agents usually never question me if I am not flying my original itinerary

Germanfflyer

Most of the travelagent selling grey-market tickets in Germany still use those but I do not know why?

jamiel

I just got one from Lowestfare.com---kind of retro-feeling! Unexpected because I usually get an e-ticket from them.

Fisch

Air Canada, and almost all travel agencies still (much to my shagrin) use these style of airline tickets. I think Air Canada is getting ready to phase these out, once their new computers have been installed system-wide. Some of their boarding passes (mostly out of LHR) are now using magnetic strip technology. Last I heard, the new computers and boarding pass printers were up and running through about 70-75% of the system.

megamiles

At least the red-carbon tickets you get in North America are still printed using a printer - I've bought international tickets in India that were hand-written by the travel agent (and I had no problem using them)

baobab

The big advantage of the handwritten red-carbon ticket in developing countries?

... They still work when the power/communication lines are down...

raeban

The only time we used red-carbon tkts was to learn how to hand write a tkt. in travel school.

baobab

Believe me, raeban, they are still standard fare in many parts of the world. I'd be shocked to see anything else in some countries - and I'd be very uncomfortable with the thought of using an e-ticket... no telling what all those brown-outs/faulty computer systems might do.

Technology takes a long time to take root...

Jetdillo

I got a set of these in PER not too long ago.
Granted this was actually downtown at the UA
city office on St. George's Terrrace and not @ the airport, where AN uses the modern "farecard" style magstripe readers, but it does go to show that even w/in a single location, there can be wide variances.

ferry

My CO and SW travel vouchers (when I was involuntarily but happily bumped) were hand-written, red-carbon copies.

Catman

In my last few travel experiences, I've seen a variety of tickets, from the red carbons to the standard computer card tickets, to the printed out e-ticket forms (my form of ticket, I like to have pieces of paper on hand if I have to argue about a reservation)
to the lady in the fur coat who walked up to the counter, put down her credit card and drivers licence and got her ticket (she had an e-ticket)

My friend Holly prefers the old fashioned tickets but I'm trying to get her to get used to e-tix (even if she gets a printed copy of her itinerary.)

Raeban: I think all future travel representatives should learn the red carbon ticket making system if the computers ever crash.

I remember at teh Air France Counter in Berlin two of the agents never hard of red carbon tickets. "We are new and we only know
the tickets you get out of the computer!)

YIKES! CATMAN