Paper Tickets Are Flying Away For Good

In just three months, according to the International Air Transport Association, 100% of tickets issued for air travel will be electronic. This is an impressive figure given that four years ago "just 18 percent of airline tickets issued worldwide were e-tickets when the program started. Today that figure is 93 percent." Like anything related to business, the airlines haven't been making the transition out of the goodness of their hearts. No, there's some money to be saved along the way:

Processing a paper ticket costs 10 bucks a pop, according to the association. The cost to process an e-ticket? One dollar.
"The industry will save over $3 billion each year by offering the passengers a better service," Bisignani (CEO of the association) said.

Of course, e-ticketing is also more convenient for passengers, but what we're most excited about is the amount of paper this initiative will save. We don't have any exact figures, but given the volume of global air travel, they must be large. Now if the airlines can just tackle that other source of environmental impact: the CO2 emissions from actually flying the planes. . .

Via: ::Wired Blog