Advantages & disadvantages of e-tickets

Electronic tickets, or e-tickets can be purchased online. All the details, including flight time and your confirmation number, are delivered to you over e-mail after you purchase your ticket. The e-ticket is stored in the airline's database, and all you need is a photo ID to get your ticket at check-in. Travellers no longer have to dig through baggage to find their boarding passes.

Consumers can compare ticket costs easily online to find and book the lowest-cost ticket. If you are travelling with a group, you only need to print one ticket, and all of the passengers will be listed on the ticket. E-ticketing has eliminated the need and process of going through a travel agent. Travellers can go online and in a few quick steps order, pay for and receive their tickets. Tickets are purchased and a copy is sent to the purchaser's e-mail address. Tickets are available for purchase all hours of the day and night.

However, you do not receive a physical ticket, which may cause you uncertainty. Additionally, there is no physical ticket for your scrapbook. Everyone using e-tickets is dependent solely on computers, and outages or security breaches can cause problems. There is a fear that some jobs, particularly travel agents' jobs, will become obsolete.

E-ticketing is less expensive for the airlines that do not have to have extra staff to handle ticketing and do not have to print so many tickets. In addition, e-ticket purchasers do not have to wait in long lines for a boarding pass. They can go to the self-check-in kiosks or check in at home and receive their boarding passes quickly. If you forget your ticket at home, it is no problem with e-tickets. You can simply go to the self-check-in and print your boarding pass. The reduction in human processing reduces mistakes.

The more e-ticket passengers who check in over the Internet, the longer the lines will be at the luggage drop-off points in airports. There are security concerns about e-ticketing. Airports will place additional staff at the gates and check-ins to avoid any security risks resulting from e-ticketing. Changes may be difficult if the system is down, because e-tickets hold very little information. Transferring to another airline in the case of a flight cancellation is difficult, because the procedures and systems are not compatible.