Got this note in from Michael at British Airways regarding Dominic Pannell’s experience with an over zealous red-rinse soldier at Mumbai Airport who prevented him from checking in to his flight because he only had an electronic version of his e-ticket.
I think the golden rule here is always print out your e-ticket containing your booking reference. While you don’t need to here in the UK, different airports operating overseas may have different rules and regulations. Our advice would be, always err on the side of caution and print out your e-ticket.
Arse. Good advice, of course, from BA… just, it’s a wee bit of a disappointment from a technology/geek perspective. I wonder, incidentally, what the status is with ShopQwik — one of their biggest benefits is not having to arse about with paper tickets.
Thanks for taking the time to write Michael!
Whew. Of course it’s impossible to fake a printed ticket. I feel very safe now 😉
Yes, thanks indeed Michael. An accurate summary of BA’s position, then, is that they have moved the onus of printing a ticket onto the passenger, since a physical ticket is still a requirement of travel. It’s good to have clarification.
I’m pleased to be back in the UK and, having been upgraded (re-instated?) to business class, I was able to grab a few hours kip, so am productively back at work. My main gripe is with the Indian army jobsworth who wasn’t prepared to give an inch – when I had checked in, I was scanned for drugs by one of his colleagues who couldn’t be bothered to take one hand out of his pocket or to return the ticket he had taken from my hand, prefering to point at it to indicate that I could pick it up from where he had dropped it.
It’s a tricky one really.
With ShopQwik, if you book a flight using your mobile or from our website, your phone software is updated with your reference number, you get a text message with all of the details and you get the usual email with all of the details as well.
In the UK, Europe and the US people have been using E-Tickets for many years now and in the vast majority of cases you just need to know your reference number while handing in your passport and everything is fine.
I hesitate to say every, but in most airports around the world now you can, if the airline is signed up, check in using the check-in machines dotted around the terminal. In the US this is the preferred method of checking in for most business travellers. All you need to do is type in your reference and it prints a boarding pass, simple as that. Most people using this facility have the correct carry on luggage quota so they don’t need to go to the check in desk, but you can check in using the terminal and then go to the check in desk to drop off your bags if necessary.
It seems to me that if it’s acceptable in the UK and US having your reference number on your phone, with some of the highest security in the world on hand, why would it not be acceptable else where.
You will see with Dominic’s case, they bumped him up to club class in the end and he got home. That seems to suggest overzealousness in itself and it is after all not like BA not to try to help their customers at all times.
I would be very unhappy if this happened to any of our clients (it hasn’t) but you cannot legislate what a person on a check in desk might do depending on how they feel. Common sense should really come in to play here.
Also, since we are all concerned with ecological matters, how many millions of tickets are printed annually that just don’t need to be. Seems like a waste of a lot of trees to me….