E-Tickets - An Evolution or just an ink saving?
 

A recent post by 1P here got me thinking about all things E-Ticket and inspired me to write the following thoughts, Mods, while this applies to most airlines, can we let this ride for a day or 2 in the BA forum?

Airline Ticketing - a brief history.

To really open up this discussion, we need to go back to the 1930s where airline inventory was literally handled on paper index cards for each flight and paper records for each booking, wanted to book a flight, you'd talk to the Sales Centre who would talk to the departure airport to see if they still had space on their index card

In 1939 our friends at American Airlines lead by Cyrus Rowlett Smith, embarked on a project to simplify this system removing the need to check for every booking until the flights were 75% full, it being 1939, flights rarely got this level so it reduced the need for back & forth phone calls.

in 1944 with demand rising, AA started looking at a more automated solution - Along came Reservisor and a short time later Magnetronic Reservisor, you can read about both courtesy of Wikipedia.

Fast forward 9 years and the forward thinking Smith, met his namesake Blair Smith of IBM, a chance meeting on an AA flight. This one conversation lead to the launch of Sabre, one of the worlds leading GDS Systems which while not the oldest Reservation System, still remains in use to this day.

What's Changed

Until the 1970s, Sabre remained AA exclusive but then expanded its offering to other airlines and over the next 20 years of so allowed the production of tickets along the lines of the below example.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a7e6fbad4d.jpg
Hat tip to Wikipedia

Where are we now and what does the future look like?

Essentially, within a GDS system, an E-ticket looks exactly as it would on paper, IATA didn't officially scrap the paper ticket until 2008.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f73957e03a.png
Hat tip to Sabre Indonesia

So to answer the question of where we are now? The technology we rely on today hasn't actually moved along very much in the last 30 years, hence when you request a change from your airline and it has to be sent off to a back office for recalculation, it's because someone literally has to sit their with a calculator and work out complicated changes!

What does the future look like?

Well to be honest, I don't see massive changes coming anytime soon, we have just seen adjustments built onto very old tech. I do not see a radical shift in process happening quickly. New Distribution Capability changes the way tickets are priced and sold but I ultimately think the old process is here to stay.

What are your thoughts? Do you still have a paper ticket stashed away somewhere?

My personal suspicion is that this is because any radical shift would require every airline in the interlining universe to move at the same time. The speed at which we changed from paper tickets to e-tickets gives me optimism that it won't occur during my lifetime.

Airlines that don't interline have been able to build more flexible systems. For example, ISTR that on EZY a single booking record can contain two passengers travelling on the same flight but in different booking classes, so you can have the last seat at the lowest available price and another seat at the next price without having to make two separate bookings.

Hopefully not having to call and wait on hold because BA haven’t “ticketed” the reservation.

I think NDC will drive further fragmentation of the market, allowing airlines to offer niche products and services that they think works for them. Price comparison is already hard (bags included? Seats included? Payment card included?...?) but will get harder as NDC capabilities further increase.

Say what you will about the old days of monolithic GDS, but they did force consistency.

i think the IATA initiative 'one order' is meant to be the next revolution in the ticketing world

Did I dream it or did tickets used to be multi-part a bit like the old credit card chits of yesteryear?

Maybe that was just a ticket 'voucher' which would be exchanged for the actual boarding pass on presentation at check in, now I come to think of it.

Yes. In my naivety, I remember just removing one of the "foils" when I skipped a sector many years ago. Got away with it though - no questions asked.