New security requirements are undermining the value of one of the travel industry's biggest technological triumphs—electronic ticketing—without guaranteeing security.
Though most airlines say travelers without baggage may bypass the front checkin desks at airports by showing either a receipt or an itinerary that includes a ticket number, corporate travel buyers are hearing mixed messages from a number of entities including the airlines themselves.
The Airlines Reporting Corp. on Sept. 26 provided the industry with guidelines that had been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration: "To enter the secured area beyond the security screening checkpoint, you must hold one of the following documents indicating a flight departure for the current date—a receipt for an electronic ticket (including ticket number), an itinerary generated by an airline or travel agency confirming an electronic ticket (including ticket number), a boarding pass or a paper ticket."
In lieu of one of these documents, e-ticketed travelers can have a boarding pass printed at the front checkin desk; many carriers have established new lines for that purpose. A handful of airlines also allow passengers to print their boarding passes from the Internet or airport kiosks. Despite the carriers' desire to prevent extra lines from becoming permanent, industry experts said receipts and itineraries are neither convenient nor authentic.
Passing through security with a receipt, for example, is impossible for travelers who made a last-minute e-ticket reservation. E-ticket users often do not receive receipts until after the trip. Itineraries do not always have a ticket number on them, since many are delivered to travelers before ticketing. While those itineraries delivered after ticketing do have ticket numbers, such documents are far from standardized throughout the industry.
Of course, travelers and corporate travel managers are willing to sacrifice some convenience for security and safety, but some sources claimed the new e-ticket rules do not even live up to their security-related purpose. FAA would not offer a rationale for its single public statement on the issue, that "only ticketed passengers will be allowed beyond the security checkpoint." In fact, the aviation agency would not directly verify ARC's statement, though an FAA spokesperson said new airline policies on what proves a passenger is ticketed had to first be approved by FAA. "Contact your airline," he said.
In response to the guidelines most airlines are following, as articulated by ARC, several sources asked, "What stops a terrorist from doctoring up an itinerary with ticket number at home on Microsoft Word?"
The airlines have resisted following the European model of requiring boarding passes at security. This is likely because, if passenger loads return to normal and e-ticketing remains pervasive, few of them have the facilities—including the counter space—to seamlessly provide boarding passes to everyone in front of security.
Using boarding passes would particularly be harmful to the operations of Southwest Airlines. A Southwest spokesperson said it will continue to operate extra lines at major airport checkin desks where passengers can obtain the required documents, but only as long as it takes the public to get used to the new rules. At the moment, Southwest's famously lean airport operation does not even produce boarding passes, so a requirement that travelers use them or a paper ticket to get past security would be hugely disruptive to that carrier.
Nonetheless, a minority of airports and some airlines, including America West and British Airways, are requiring travelers to use boarding passes. Other airports are recommending ARC's guidelines, but many also are leaving it up to the carriers. At least one airline, which is publicly encouraging e-tickets, privately is telling key accounts to advise travelers to get a boarding pass.
While forging a boarding pass or paper ticket would be a challenge, some experts questioned how secure those documents are when security personnel are not equipped to match the information with an airline reservation. "At the security gate, you have no access to the information you need to validate that," said Mat Orrego, president of Bloomington, Ind.-based Cornerstone Information Systems, which automates travel document delivery.
Although a poll issued Sept. 24 by the Business Travel Coalition showed that the vast majority of companies have not required paper, some told Business Travel News they are not issuing e-tickets for the time being. In any case, corporate buyers now are calling on the airlines, airports and regulatory institutions to stem misinformation and help them offer travelers a clear message about what to expect.
"We were 98 percent e-tickets and decided to stay with them," said Marianne Goodman, manager of global travel services for Keane Inc., based in Boston. "But I told everyone to go to the counter and get a boarding pass, for now. Everything is so fluid right now, and it's different airline to airline, airport to airport."
"We're having confusion, not with FAA, but where local airport authorities and security services are looking to exceed FAA standards in terms of what they will accept," said Jim Young, managing director of distribution planning for Continental Airlines. "Continental is falling all over itself to be sure customers have a document in hand with which they can get through security."
Three airlines, including Continental, said they had not seen a precipitous drop in the ratio of e-tickets to paper, but a United Airlines source said that carrier had.
E-tickets are valuable to all parties in the industry. In addition to their oft-reported savings on delivery, airline revenue accounting and lost tickets—not to mention their facilitation of Internet travel commerce without product delivery—e-tickets also generate a level of knowledge about travelers that many paper tickets do not. That's invaluable information in the increasingly important pre-trip screening of airline reservations lists for "most-wanted" names.
"E-tickets have a 13-month online trail of the transaction, what changes, when and who," said Al Lenza, vice president of distribution planning at Northwest Airlines. "You also have no risk of stolen tickets." He added that bookings made online provide even more profile information. "I don't know why people are picking on e-tickets," Lenza said, adding that the Sept. 11 terrorists bought paper. Had they bought e-tickets, perhaps the perpetrators' histories in the airline's database would have raised a red flag. Perhaps not.
While the e-ticket rules in practice with most carriers arguably do not serve their purported purpose, the travel industry is gearing up to meet the new receipt- and itinerary-based requirements.
One suggestion is to make receipts and itineraries more genuine using encryption. Initially intended to help clients police the padding of expense reports, Barrington, Ill.-based Trondent Development Corp. is creating a "digital fingerprint." Though it would appear to laymen as random numbers and letters, the print could encrypt verifyable profile information.
Meanwhile, the OpenTravel Alliance has considered, with the support of the National Business Travel Association, an industry standard for information on e-ticket itineraries. At the moment, though, OTA is awaiting further review by the airlines' distribution managers.