online airline ticket booking

Exciting times are ahead when you book an airline ticket - at least most of the time. There are exceptions of course, as we can see while at airports watching business passengers in the lounges, laptop on table, checking their email before boarding. Perhaps not the exciting times you envisage when making a trip somewhere for a vacation.

Let's go back a few years - and with the benefit of a few years behind me I can remember the time when we used to wear our best suits to travel on an aircraft. The process of presenting a ticket was somewhat lengthy and if those of you around my age group can remember, the ticket took the form of a small booklet. I ask this rhetorical question here: What were all those pages for? The carbon copies went through each of four or five pages.

You fronted up at your departure point, gave the ticket in, put your luggage on the scales - is that what they're called at airports? - and the administrative person behind the desk started the process. Firstly, he/she would check your details, name, departure point, etc. Then tear out one of the pages. I am sure there used to be four inside pages, but I thought that at departure and return points the airport staff would only take out one page at a time. If that be the case, why was there only the stub of the ticket left when you got home. I admit I haven't had sleepless nights worrying about it, but I found it puzzling whenever circumstance arose. I thought that perhaps a copy of the luggage labels that were placed on your bags were attached to them, but no, they were stapled to the front or back of the ticket.

I guess with the ticket, the object of the exercise was to determine that they were your airline tickets and therefore they entitled you to the ultimate prize - a boarding pass for the aircraft. I guess I must seem cynical. Actually, I am in full admiration for how efficient the system was and is.

I find that airline ticketing generally is pretty good. The advent of the eticket was made seamlessly and was probably, in these security conscious days, one of the simplest and more effective ways of ensuring that the person who had the ticket was in fact the person who bought it.

Coming back briefly to the attachment of luggage bar codes to tickets. I have no doubt that this has streamlined the handling process of the thousands of pieces of luggage that pass through airports daily, but in my case, I was in Perth, Western Australia, catching a flight with my wife to Melbourne. Both our tickets were verified, and barcode luggage tickets attached. Arrived in Melbourne - found out luggage is in Sydney. No problem, delivered next day at airline's expense. This made me think that for all the bar-coding and ticketing efficiency, if a luggage handling person puts it on the wrong trolley, there is nothing anyone can do.

I hope this light hearted look at airline tickets and ticketing does not offend airport and airline staff. If so, I apologise. They have my undying admiration for the tasks they perform under extremely difficult situations.

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Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Airline Tickets
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