Does printing your own e-ticket & boarding passes waste more paper & kill more trees?
Mar 30, 2015, 8:32 am
#17
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: ORD/MDW
Programs: BA/AA/AS/B6/WN/ UA/HH/MR and more like 'em but most felicitously & importantly MUCCI
Posts: 19,719
Mar 30, 2015, 6:15 pm
#19
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: USA
Posts: 1,400
This brings up another issue: why do the self check-in kiosks always insist on printing your BP? What if I just want to check a bag or see if there are LFBUs available? There should be a question asking if you already have a boarding pass or electronic boarding pass.
Of course I can see people getting confused, hitting "yes," then wondering why TSA won't let them through without any boarding pass.
Of course I can see people getting confused, hitting "yes," then wondering why TSA won't let them through without any boarding pass.
Mar 30, 2015, 9:50 pm
#21
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: jfk area
Programs: AA platinum; 2MM AA, Delta Diamond, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 10,291
As noted up thread, printing the bp to a pdf (you have a copy if needed in the future) and then print on your printer, just the page with the bar code.
[Printing only to your I-device ONLY, could cause problems--battery dies just as you get to TSA screener.
]
Side comment: anyone who has gone to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (in early Jan. each year) [150,000+ attendees] the number of pages of printed documents is huge (each day, for 4 days, thousands of 400 page directories, 100+ pages of news for that days events, maps, trade publications, advertising brochures, etc.) would make the bp issue, NO issue.
[Printing only to your I-device ONLY, could cause problems--battery dies just as you get to TSA screener.
]Side comment: anyone who has gone to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (in early Jan. each year) [150,000+ attendees] the number of pages of printed documents is huge (each day, for 4 days, thousands of 400 page directories, 100+ pages of news for that days events, maps, trade publications, advertising brochures, etc.) would make the bp issue, NO issue.
Mar 31, 2015, 5:53 am
#22
Suspended
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Ontario, Canada
Programs: Aeroplan, IHG, Enterprise, Avios, Nexus
Posts: 8,355
The solution is recycled paper and refilled printer cartridges. Environmentalists can print BPs to their heart's content and then bask in the warm afterglow of making an entirely insignificant contribution to the planet.
Mar 31, 2015, 6:42 am
#23
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: my heart is on the shores of the north Italian lakes
Programs: LX Senator Lifetime, Relais&Chateaux Club5C, ex ! "Amanjunkie", ex LHW LC, hate chain hotels
Posts: 2,515
Are boarding passes on smartphones not common in hi tech North America ? I don't remember any printed boarding pass on a LH group flight departing from Europe these last years.
Mar 31, 2015, 7:51 am
#24
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: MCI
Programs: AA Gold 1MM, AS MVP, UA Silver, WN A-List, Marriott LT Titanium, HH Diamond
Posts: 52,574
Flying solo, I always use the mobile BP. For a couple years, I'd occasionally run into an airport that couldn't handle them, but that hasn't been the case for me in some time.
Mar 31, 2015, 9:28 am
#25
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: DTW
Programs: Dirt Status w/ All
Posts: 5,040
But you are using additional electricity that your phone uses for the extra time swiping and tapping to open and keep that mobile boarding pass displayed, not to mention all of the extra electrons that have to fly through the internet (you would think Al Gore would have made the internet more carbon neutral when he invented it). That means your phone ends up making the power plants work harder, which are quite likely are burning fossil fuels. You better hug two trees and a shrubbery on your way to the airport to be sure you are offsetting your emissions.
Mar 31, 2015, 1:34 pm
#26
Join Date: May 2014
Location: DFW
Programs: IHG Plat, AA GLD, DL FO, Natl Elite
Posts: 259
But you are using additional electricity that your phone uses for the extra time swiping and tapping to open and keep that mobile boarding pass displayed, not to mention all of the extra electrons that have to fly through the internet (you would think Al Gore would have made the internet more carbon neutral when he invented it). That means your phone ends up making the power plants work harder, which are quite likely are burning fossil fuels. You better hug two trees and a shrubbery on your way to the airport to be sure you are offsetting your emissions.
Mar 31, 2015, 1:38 pm
#27
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: London
Programs: US Gold
Posts: 627
I vastly prefer printed bps (but don't print any but the bp page). Couple of reasons, but an important one is that if the bp is on the phone I have to hand people my phone so they can look at it. I consider this an unwise thing to do.
wg
wg
Apr 1, 2015, 9:01 am
#28
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: ORD/MDW
Programs: BA/AA/AS/B6/WN/ UA/HH/MR and more like 'em but most felicitously & importantly MUCCI
Posts: 19,719
But you are using additional electricity that your phone uses for the extra time swiping and tapping to open and keep that mobile boarding pass displayed, not to mention all of the extra electrons that have to fly through the internet (you would think Al Gore would have made the internet more carbon neutral when he invented it). That means your phone ends up making the power plants work harder, which are quite likely are burning fossil fuels. You better hug two trees and a shrubbery on your way to the airport to be sure you are offsetting your emissions.
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/a...bon-footprint/
Every kilobyte served and transmitted runs that number up. Gartner said eight years ago that data centers were emitting about as much CO2 as the whole aviation industry. Considering the Big Data growth rate, they've probably surpassed aviation by now as enviro-damagers.
http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/530912
So before you award yourself a green badge for doing everything virtually / on screen to save one sheet of recycled / recyclable paper, especially when you're in a fuel-burning taxi on your way to a big energy-burning airport to board a big energy-burning airplane, consider the whole, real picture.
Apr 1, 2015, 11:35 am
#29
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: SEA (the REAL Washington); occasionally in the other Washington (DCA area)
Programs: DL PM 1.57MM; AS MVPG 100K
Posts: 21,371
this rather begs for a "Newton's Law of the Environment": for every benefit in some area, there is a countervailing (though not necessarily equal and opposite) cost in some other area
Apr 1, 2015, 4:25 pm
#30
Moderator: Manufactured Spending
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 6,580
Scientists just call this the law of unintended consequences. In colloquial language, "there is always a flip side". The goal is to make sure that the costs on the flip side are less than the benefits.