Originally posted by preiffer
There's a post on here (and a very detailed one on FT) somewhere about e-tickets.
The "E" does not refer to the lack of customer paperwork - it refers to how the ticket is ISSUED by the airline, and stored in their system.
'Seems that there is some confusion as to what constitutes an e-ticket.
We are all familiar with old paper coupons with the red carbon paper that were stuck in to the back of a boarding passes; they were replaced on some airlines by the ATB which was a cardboard coupon with a magnetic strip on the back. IF you lost it from the back of your boarding pass, you weren't allowed to fly.
The thing about these paper tickets was that the red carbon/ATB coupon was then sent to an IATA clearing house and all the interline costs were balanced out. The coupon had cash value. The clearing houses (often in India ironically enough) would then let airlines know what they owed to each other for carrying each other's passengers on an interline basis. That way there was minimal interruption to cash flow - critical for airlines who carry huge capital costs and massive debts.
E-tickets are the new way of working all this out. With an e-ticket all the calculations and interline costs are are cleared electronically. So it's the cost that is electronic, not the ticket. You could in theory have a paper e-ticket (but that would be silly... hmmm - maybe this idea is just made for bmi )
This is why you are now seeing new "enhancements" like refusals to through-check bags on two separate PNRs - the cost of virtual interlining using multiple tickets are now becoming apparent to airlines with the advent of e-ticketing. Also, e-ticketing incresingly allows airlines to see their actual costs on a much more regular basis, as clearing is done electronically'
