Etihad will set a minimum add on charge of USD25 for its customers who travel with paper tickets at airports where e-ticketing is available.

Geert Boven, Etihad’s Executive VP sales and services, said: “Etihad’s drive to have our customers use electronic tickets is a move towards stress free travel. There are no tickets to lose and there’s no need for last minute queues for tickets on departure.”

Switching from the old fashioned paper ticket to electronic ticketing is set to save the aviation industry USD3 billion annually, according to IATA.

Currently IATA processes 300 million paper tickets a year. The cost to process an electronic ticket is USD1 whereas a paper ticket costs ten times as much to administer.

Date posted: 28-Jun-07.