In the past I have used paper RTW tickets but given what I have perceived as a general consensus here for e-tickets, on the last re-issue I went with an e-ticket for the remaining segments. Previously, I had made various routing changes periodically by phoning the AA RTW desk and then when I was finally ready to have the ticket re-issued, I would go to the AA (or other One-World) office and have the re-issue done. Then it would only be at this final stage that I was charged with a single re-issue fee (even though I might have made several itinerary changes along the way). Today, I phoned to have the next part of my ticket changed, figuring that I would change other parts later when my plans became clearer (but before I took the next flight). However, today I was told that the reissue fee would be charged over the phone now and any changes next month or later, would incur new reissue fees. I hadn�t realized that this was a difference between paper tickets and e-tickets. Having the opportunity to make periodic changes without being charged until the need for reissue (i.e., before the next upcoming flight) seems to me to be a major advantage of paper tickets. I�m sure that this point must have been discussed in detail here but I never noticed it.

Perhaps when making the type of changes you stated, an e-ticket actually causes the e-ticket to be reissued while a paper ticket does not. Or it may be that separating the reservation from the ticket when using e-tickets is not possible. Pure guess on my part.

AA rtw desk? Must be a new rule - I booked space for an unticketed segment a couple of weeks ago without any charge; agent told me to call back (with additional routing changes) when I was ready, and she'd set up the reissue.

OTOH if you book an unticketed segment, the carrier doesn't really like to hold the space forever (although a good agent can easily handle that for you), and paying the fee will lock it in the official way. Looking at it that way, it's to the pax' advantage to be able to make a change, pay the fee, and have a month to make additional changes for the same fee, if I understood OP correctly.

BTW there's certainly no concensus that e-tickets are better than paper. Even the knowledgeable guys who were at first the most positive have recognized some important shortcomings as they surfaced through more use of the e-ticket.

Personally the only advantage I see is that they're theoretically easier to re-issue (because the airline actually keeps the details on-line, which their antiquated software can't do for paper). But even that premise has been poked at by recent postings suggesting iirc that e-ticket reissues work okay with the airline that issued them, while other carriers can't always access the details they need.

I agree with JohnAx about the paper vs electronic debate being far from settled.

It is settled as IATA has mandated no paper tickets a year from now. 2007 is your last chance to use paper tickets.

Some of these changes in e-ticket procedures are occuring as the various airlines prepare for this 100% e-ticket environment. Expect more changes. At the moment the airlines are up to their eyeballs just to have a system that works, and features that are nice but not essential, like deferred ticketing, are going to be lower priority and may change as needed.

Can IATA actually mandate anything? (I assume the airlines see e-tickets as a cost savings and are willing participants, of course.)

IATA is owned by the airlines that are IATA members, and requires a super-majority vote. So IATA initiatives are basically at the request of, and for the benefit of, the airlines. That is the sole purpose of IATA.

IATA operates the clearing house for tickets (analogous to checks clearing between banks). IATA has announced that it will stop clearing paper tickets, only e-tickets. So, if you fly on CX on an AA issued paper ticket, CX cannot get paid for that paper ticket through the IATA clearing house. Airlines are free to clear tickets on their own, so CX could present that paper ticket directly for payment. But this is an expensive process!

E-ticket costs less than 10% of the paper ticket cost, so yes, there are huge savings involved. After the conversion costs are written off, going to e-tickets doubles the operating profit of the airline industry. The initiative has been underway for a decade, but the pieces are mostly in place now and going rather well (FT concerns not withstanding).

So do I take it that places which are currently non-eticketable like CMB are going to be e-ticketable soon?

I hope paper tix issued this year are still valid for use next year...

IATA has defined a procedure for airports without online access to use for processing e-tickets. It is pretty complicated, but the gist is that they print off a pax list ahead of time and check in from a piece of paper. Imagine the chaos that this will entail. And all the sources of error.

I gather that Jan 08 will be an extremely bad time to travel in situations which entail the above..

What about paper tickets issued now though - will they be accepted at e-ticket enabled ports post 2007? Or will airlines attempt to slug fees on pax in these circumstances due to the expensive processing costs involved.

Thanks for these further thoughts on paper tickets versus e-tickets.
In an ironic followup, after making my original posting the AA RTW agent phoned me back to say that the computer would not accept my new itinerary as an e-ticket so she would have to now issue it as a paper ticket, even though I had flown a segment since it was re-issued as an e-ticket in Feb. I hypothesized that maybe I had added some open jaw segments that put the total over 16 lines (or whatever the technical term is) but the agent rejected that explanation and stated that she sensed the reason why but couldn�t explain it to me!!!

Im holding paper tickets for travel in Jan 2008, I hope that it will be accepted for travel

FWIW, in North America, paper tickets seem to be nonexistant already. I have presented a paper ticket to a YYZ check in agent only to be asked "sir what is this?" The boarding cards also no longer have room for the flight coupon to be slipped in. It now has to be stapled on.

Let's not get carried away with all these reports about the imminent death of paper tickets. As long as an airline issues a paper ticket they are contractually bound to honor it for the full validity period, or to exchange it for an equivalent e-ticket, if they must. I don't like paper tickets, but to think that if AA, say, issues me a paper ticket in December 2007, valid for up to December 2009 (depending on the date of the first flight), is going to tell me, when I show for check-in sometime in 2008, "tough luck viajero, your ticket is no longer valid", is simply absurd.

It depends on the airline. This month I've presented paper tickets to fly AZ, AC, UA and LH flights out of YYZ. At least in the case of AZ, they seem to have the slot in the back. And even before etickets came to be the norm, some airlines didn't have the slot in the back to insert a paper ticket and therefore would staple them.

I understand, but am more worried about the endorasability of my paper ticket. My travel schedule tends to be quite non flexible, so if the airline that I am ticketed on is full, I can endorse the ticket to another carrier on departure. This is not possible if they convert my ticket to an e-ticket. An example was when I was flying on PIA from Karachi to the Dubai. I needed to be in Dubai a day earlier but PK was full. I presented my ticket to EK at KHI airport and flew that night without issue.

Cheers