Airline Paper Tickets a Thing of the Past?

Much like the eight-track, the rotary-dial phone and the typewriter before it the airline paper ticket will soon become non-existent.

In a press release from the International Air Transport Association, Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani, was quoted:

The paper ticket has served us well, but its time is over. After four years of hard work by airlines around the world, tomorrow marks the beginning of a new, more convenient and more efficient era for air travel.

I don’t think this comes as a surprise to anyone really. The surprise might actually be that there were places that still used paper tickets. I am probably one of the last Americans to have seen paper tickets used. On my yearly flight from Riverton, WY to Antarctica I am issued a paper ticket for the Riverton to Denver leg of my flight. In fact, in 2007 when I did this flight, the baggage tag and boarding pass were both hand written.

The only other place that I can recall having seen a paper ticket was from Srinagar (Kashmir) to Delhi. I guess you have to have electricity to run your computers – whoda thunk it?

Anyhow, I’m really glad to see paper tickets going away but I fear for the future…will we all have to have micro chips implanted under our scalps to be able to fly? Probably, and if the fine folks that brought us the Taser and companies of their ilk have their way the micro chip will be able to deliver a nearly lethal electric shock at the whim of some under-trained, over-zealous TSA agent.

Ahhh…the measure of progress.

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