Electronic tickets save time, worry for corporate travelers

Central Penn Business Journal, Sep 18, 1998 by S, Amy

Electronic tickets are gaining popularity, taking the worry out of lost tickets for business travelers. And, electronic tickets are much more convenient.

Local travel agencies say electronic ticketing is spreading its influence across the country. "We've done a survey where 95 percent of people who use e-tickets the first time use them a second time," Tony Molinaro, spokesman for United Airlines said. United Airlines was one of the first to offer e-tickets to its customers, back in 1994.

"It's aimed at the business traveler, people on short-haul lines and frequent fliers," Molinaro said. "It's not really aimed at folks that take family vacations one time a year."

John W. Bailey, owner of Bailey Travel and Cruises, York, said the e-tickets have resulted in more convenience for all parties concerned.

A traveler just calls a travel agency or airline, gives a credit-card number, and, voila, a ticket is generated. "It' s kind of like calling QVC," Bailey said. Paper copies of the ticket are produced for the travel agent, the flight coupon and the auditing purposes.

Also, once an electronic ticket has been purchased, the fee has been locked in, according to Margaret Richcreek, an owner of Richcreek Vacation Center, Harrisburg.

"It has a very positive effect," according to Bailey, whose agency has worked with these paperless tickets since 1995. "It's great for clients because they never have to dig for tickets that are lost, and it's great for the agency, because it doesn't have to handle the paper."

"That's the key to it," Molinaro said. "You can't lose it. That's one of the big advantages."

Bailey estimates 85 percent of the corporate travel he books is done by electronic ticketing, while 40 percent of his total ticketing is e-ticketing.

And any existing computer system can generate an e-ticket, Richcreek said.

The drawback? Electronic ticketing between airlines is not yet available. When the work stoppage occurred at Northwest Airlines, for example, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines web sites instructed customers they would have to contact Northwest Airlines to print them out a paper ticket, before they could change to another airline.

Also, when a trip involves a connection or airline change for which e-ticketing is not available, a paper ticket is generated for the entire trip.

Currently, the airlines are expanding their e-ticket reach. According to Molinaro, 88 percent of the cities to which United flies have electronic-ticketing capabilities.

United is working with American Airlines to develop electronic ticketing jointly between the airlines, Molinaro said. "We can't do that today, you have to have a paper ticket," he said. "We figure, since the two biggest airlines are planning it, the others will follow." United and American plan to have this option available in spring 1999, he added.

Another drawback is that e-tickets can be forgotten.

"If you work for a real large corporation, and a lot of tickets are generated, if you had an e-ticket, it could sit in a computer and not be used. I think you're going to see tens of millions in revenue for people with e-tickets that are unused," Bailey said.

"It's a big savings, especially to our corporate accounts," Bailey said. The tickets cost the same as paper tickets. "It' s just a time-savings for agencies and airlines."

Bailey said he has never heard of any glitches in which e-tickets have been lost from an airline's computer system. "More often, when we try to generate e-tickets, a link may not be made (with the airline's computer system). Every month or two, it happens. Once the system is fine-tuned, it won't be bad."

Molinaro said redundancy in United's computer system keeps a ticket from being lost. For e-tickets, information is cross-filed by the traveler's name, flight number and frequent-flier information.

"So, in case something got wiped out, you can still find it in another spot. We think it's working; we don't have a problem with that issue," Molinaro said.

At York International Corp., Dave Kelley, a corporate travel consultant with American Express Travel, said he's constantly booking business-related trips. Kelley estimates that about 80 percent of trips he booked this year are done using e-tickets. "We try to do it 100 percent of the time, but some travelers prefer paper ticketing, so we do it for them." However, Kelley sees the paper ticket becoming less common at York International. "We've been going strictly with electronic tickets for the past month or so because of cost-saving issues."

"The only negative side I've heard is in the case of a schedule change or in the event of a strike like at Northwest, people want paper tickets to negotiate with other airlines," Kelley said. "I don't know if that' s a negative thing, it's just a preference."

An advantage, Kelly said, is in cases where travelers need to make changes on a non-refundable reserve ticket, the agent can have the ticket returned immediately, just by printing it out. With a paper ticket, the traveler has to send the ticket back to the travel office.