corporate-wage-slave

Well, you will probably be steered to a machine unless you have luggage to check in, in which case you have to see an agent, and if you ask nicely they will reprint your boarding pass for you. One tactic is to download the boarding pass to the phone, use that for the baggage transaction, and then ask for a print at the baggage desk "since I don't think my phone has enough power left". That said looking at your first post, if your phone doesn't last a couple of days without charging, I would suggest you get yourself a phone that does! There again those Nokias that only need charging 12 times a year don't do boarding passes.....

Not relevant to NCL services, but LGW has direct luggage check-in without using an agent, but there is a supervisory agent would could probably help.

henkybaby

I remember it well. I flew in to MRU on Comair, the first time I did a AONE6 with (at that time 21 segments) I was greeted at the door upon arrival by the BA rep and escorted to a car and taken to the office to 'receive' my booklet. I felt almost like royalty. That kind of service is rare nowadays. I had no idea they even would come and hand me my tickets. I miss those days....

I still have the empty one somewhere. It looked good and it felt nice to have them but also a pain if you needed a change or - god forbid - lost them.

Ldnn1

No, that's not what OP is looking for - hence why I said don't ask for a ticket print-out.

OP, as I understand it, simply wants his boarding pass, printed on the card stock rather than mobile or the flimsy machine paper.

BrianWBrazil

If the OP is concerned about durability of his document, he would love living in Brazil. You can get an A4 sheet both printed and laminated for under a Dollar!

Takiteasy

that's an upmarket version. Mine were often handwritten!

Oxon Flyer

If they always end up getting torn, why do you keep putting them in your pocket ?

They do fold up and fit into wallets .... @:-)

Doc Savage

This. ^

Or inside your passport if carrying that.

1Aturnleft

When I was a travel agent, we used to have dot matrix printed IATA ticket stock. You'd tear off the agent and audit coupons, leaving the flight coupons intact. Upto 4 in one ticket I believe. These were all red backed to allow the print to transfer onto each coupon. 1-3 sector journeys would require the "void" coupon(s) to be pulled at time of issue. Anything over 4 sectors required issuing conjunction tickets with the associated numbers printed in the relevant boxes and then the actual booklets had to be stapled together. At check in, they'd tear the coupon out and either retain or attach to the back of your boarding pass for pulling at the gate. No coupon, no flight. And if the airport forgot to pull the coupon, no revenue for that sector.

I much preferred automated ticketing. Those booklets were a b*gger to keep neat and legible. Although they definitely had their uses. If you miss a ticket deadline these days, forget it. Back then you could grab a manual ticket, back date on the validator and write out the ticket by hand.

By the time I got around to Oneworld Global Explorer and Star Alliance RTW fares we'd gone over to the ATB (boarding pass style) thermal coupons. End result was a neater bar coded ticket that doubled as a boarding pass. I still had to type in the entire route in linear format onto the tickets LON BA D X/FRA CX D HKG QF D SYD QF D AKL LA D SCL LA D JFK BA D LON. END DONE5 style. Manually enter the fare and away you go. Having completed my IATA levels 1&2 ticketing and fare constructions, my colleagues were happy to let me do it all for them. I dare say I'm somewhat of a nightmare whenever I need to talk fares and ticketing rules with an airline or travel agent - these days its mostly all scripted for them and they generally just tab through the boxes until an sticker number appears. And people wonder why their IT ticket isn't upgradable when booking though a travel agent these days... most of who wouldn't know any better because the computer does or doesn't say so

chalf

And 1990s and even 2000s on some airlines - I recall having a true carbon paper ticket on SU as late as 2004, and OK in 2005.

barnet

Related to this, can you get boarding passes that aren't just on plain white paper/card? Like with the logo in colour? Something you might want to keep as a souvenir for example.

I've seen them on the likes of Lufthansa, Air India, Qatar, Emirates and a few others. Whenever I've got the paper ones on BA they're just from the self-serve machines on the shop-receipt-esque paper

orbitmic

That's my technique too!

On a side note, nice to see those good old red paper tickets. And yes I did have the hand written ones too, even more exciting!

scottishpoet

If you have luggage then rock up with your phone boarding pass and explain at the desk that you are worried the battery will die and ask for a boarding pass

If at LHR they usher you to a machine and do not let you approach a desk then go through security and once airside then I think you can go to one of the service desks and explain you battery died on your phone and get them to print a boarding pass.

layz

I don't think BA do these any more, certainly not from the UK. I don't think T5 has ever had boarding passes on dedicated colour stock and the last time I got one was from LGW in the mid-2000's.

I remember getting a handwritten ticket from the KLM ticket desk in LCY in 2007. I was using some vouchers (that needed to be used on KL, NW or AF coded flights) and booked tickets to BUD (via AMS on the outbound and CDG on the way back, the sectors to/from BUD were operated by Malev under a KL or AF code). Turned out at the time KL codeshares on Malev could be e-ticketed by AF codeshares couldn't so they needed to issue a paper ticket.

Wayland

Why not get a portable power pack to keep your phone charged when travelling? I have one as a permanent fixture in my hand luggage.

FrancisA

BA BPs used to have a dark blue strip at the top with British Airways on it. I believe Concorde had its own (Silver?) coloured BPs.

These went in about 2006/07 with move to black and white printing on plan card or now thermal paper.

I believe some airlines still have different coloured BPs for different cabins, which helps with priority boarding provided you don't offer it to status passengers in lower cabins. Won't work well on BA and additional printing cost is unlikely to get approval.