Airline Hopes For Cost Savings

Hoping to slash the cash gash (alliteration is fun!), Continental Airlines says it'll do away with paper ticketing in almost all circumstances by the end of the year.

Almost 95 percent of Continental's passengers already go electronic. But a larger percentage of its foreign passengers, 88 percent, are still using the old fashioned tickets because, according to the airline, the idea of electronic ticketing was introduced overseas quite awhile after it first appeared at the airline's counters in 1995.

Continental plans to make ticketless travel the official rule by the end of the year, saying it will charge passengers $50 for paper tickets thereafter. "Because of the cost savings opportunity, we are quite serious about our paperless objective and are doing everything we can to make 100 percent paperless travel on Continental a reality," said David Grizzle, senior vice president for corporate development. He was interviewed by the Houston Chronicle.

The cost of paper ticketing is pretty high. Most airlines spend up to $10 printing out a passenger's ticket. If more than one airline is involved in the itinerary, that cost goes up to $40. Proponents of ticketless travel say they can cut costs by about a third.

FMI: www.continental.com