Paper airline tickets were supposed to all but vanish a few years ago, replaced by electronic tickets that exist only in an airline’s reservation system. But ticketless travel didn’t happen the way everyone thought it would.
E-tickets offered a number of challenges, including the potential for fraud and issues of interline transferability (that’s the ability of a virtual ticket to be accepted on another carrier). But one of their biggest barriers to acceptance was the fact that we still live in a paper world.
In other words, pulp still rules.
Now along comes a startup company called EncrypTix that promises first a compromise, then a quantum leap. Starting next year, the El Segundo, Calif., company wants to give travelers the option of printing encrypted airline tickets and boarding passes from their own printer. But ultimately, its vision is to store encoded ticket information on cell phones or personal digital assistants and to “beam” it to gate agents.
I’ll admit, the thought of not having to stand in line while a ticket agent hunts-and-pecks her way through my itinerary sounds appealing. Plus, I think the prospect that starting in 2001, a number of hotel chains and car rental companies could also accept these encrypted tickets is encouraging. Travel suppliers have traditionally been slow to embrace changes like these.
But is all of this necessary? The first product – a “print your own” paper boarding pass – will probably have a limited appeal to business travelers. We’ve been living with e-tickets for years now and we accept them with all their flaws. If our corporate travel agent or travel Web site offers encrypted boarding passes we might use them, but for many of us, lining up at the gate is part of our accepted travel routine.
What if I could hit a button on my PDA and send ticket information to a gate agent as I walked on to the plane? EncrypTix Chief Executive Jim Rowan calls the idea “sexy” and I can’t dispute that. Already, many gate agents carry handheld devices that could interface with our technology, given the right hardware modifications.
More business travelers are interested in ticketless travel, according to a recent Yankelovich Partners poll. It finds that 59 percent of road warriors consider electronic tickets “very desirable” in an airline, a jump of two percentage points from 1999. Meanwhile, 62 percent of corporate travelers carry a cellular phone when traveling and another 34 percent travel with a beeper (although some beepers now more resemble a PDA than ever).
EncrypTix is likely to encounter the most resistance from airline employees. I can’t count the number of times that a ticket agent has stopped a passenger from using a wireless device in a boarding area. (The stories about the ensuing fights are worth a column in themselves.) Changing that behavior must be one of the first steps in implementing this technology.
But travelers will go for it, I think.
“We believe the wireless age has just begun,” notes Rowan. “And as wireless use increases, so will the demand for secure wireless storage, delivery and authentication services.”
It will take some time, though. Even though EncrypTix tickets will be sold and accepted as early as next year, it could take another year until our PDAs interface with a gate agent’s wireless device. So until that happens, we’re still stuck with two choices: e-tickets or fiber tickets.
In the end, I’m not sure if EncrypTix will represent the final word in ticket delivery. More likely, it’s a necessary intermediate step that will usher in an age in which electronic tickets can truly be called electronic.
What are your thoughts on the future of the airline ticket? Do you prefer paper of virtual tickets?
Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.
Elliott is consumer advocate 
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