Originally Posted by Tango
I just tried to buy a ticket from CHS to GIG by using Delta from CHS to JFK and RG from JFK to GIG. You can get electronic tickets if you buy the DL and RG tickets by themselves but if you try to link them together (and it gives you a better price), you are required to have a paper ticket even though both airlines have agreements with each other. I agree that the vast majority of reservations can and should be done using the electronic method but there are times where it can't be done.
Alaska has just finally decided that it can be done for the vast majority of its customers and that the very few exceptions that are out there just aren't worth the continued cost of handling paper tickets (think 'special meals' - same philosophy). It's another cost cutting measure. Cathay is an exception for now, but those will become electronic very shortly.
Examples like the one above are bound to start popping up, but it'll be more cost effective for each airline (both DL & RG) so the few customers inconvenienced by stuff like that are unfortunately worth the trade-off. I know that Alaska wants to convert all of its paper interline agreements into e-ticket agreements, but lots of those carriers just aren't ready to do it. Instead of waiting around for them, it sounds like we're just cutting the cord, living with the consequences, and saving some money in the process (mostly by simplifying/streamlining accounting stuff). All of the carriers that AS does substantial conjunctive ticketing with are already converted to interline e-ticketing with AS.
It'll sure help streamline checkin (both online and at the airport) and the whole accounting process that deals with paper tickets can start going away.
It's the end of an era, that's for sure... I wonder what web check-in at Pan Am would have looked like.
