American Airlines to discontinue paper tickets

WFAA Television- ABC Affiliate | 6/24/2002 | WFAA- Channel 8

[sinkspur]

American Airlines announced tonight that it will discontinue issuing paper tickets altogether over the next eighteen months. A substantial savings will result in the exclusive e-ticket environment.

The Dallas Morning News will feature a full article on the announcement on Tuesday, June 25.

[appeal2]

This is wonderful. Now there will be more trees left standing in the West which will result in more wild fires.

[goldstategop]

I like E-tickets. Its the future and when you buy a flight one on Priceline.com or Hotwire.com you're not issued a boarding pass til you get to the check in counter at the airport. It saves the worry of losing or forgetting a paper ticket. And its convenient.

[July 4th]

And you won't be able to easily get on another airline when your American flight has been cancelled.

[LurkerNoMore!]

You'd think that the current $10 charge per paper ticket would somehow more than cover their costs.

[Iowa Granny]

And you won't be able to easily get on another airline when your American flight has been cancelled.

BINGO My thoughts exactly. If you don't have a ticket in your hand, it's darned near impossible to negotiate your way onto another flight with another airline.

[goldstategop]

Not a problem in practice. I was stranded in Chicago once due to bad weather and the airline accomodated me with a flight the next day. Airlines don't want to lose customers so if you're bumped due to an unforeseen situation, chances are good you'll get on another flight.

[kellynla]

Exactly! Without a paper ticket you are screwed! Which means you will have to haggle with AA to issue you a paper ticket should your flight get cancelled...and hope they will...has anyone flown as a courier?

[sinkspur]

This will be the end of paper tickets; all the majors will follow AA.

Reservation systems already have links to each other; in the cases of cancelled flights, the airlines will be able to access the Passenger Name Records in other systems.

[Shermy]

ping for later read

[B4Ranch]

and if the computer system is down or slow. Then what happens?