You?ve often raced against time, making countless trips to the travel agent or the airline office to make a booking and on occasion repeating the trip to pick up the tickets. Sometimes tickets have even gone missing or you?ve realised at the airport (perhaps too late) that you?ve left them at home.

Delhi businessman Sunil Khanna is a frequent flier who has, at some point of time, done all of the above. Now, he buys 16 coupons on Air Deccan for around Rs 50,000 (valid for a year) and sits pretty till he?s ready to fly. ?It?s so easy. I log onto on-line bookings and make my reservation. In no time at all, I get a confirmation of my booking and all that?s left is to take a printout! Submitted with a coupon I?m ready to board,? Khanna smiles broadly. Recently, he had made a similar booking for his wife who was in Bangalore and e-mailed her the airline?s confirmation. All she had to do was carry the printout to the airport and board the flight back to Delhi.

Likewise, businessman Raj Saxena is a frequent flier on Jet Airways. He books, pays for, and prints his e-ticket from the comfort of his office. Booking complete, the system generates an e-ticket and a printable itinerary receipt. ?E-ticketing redefines travelling light! The itinerary receipt is the confirmation of travel and convenient, as I have little time to go through agents. It takes all of five minutes and with the itinerary receipt, I arrive at the airport and check-in with an identification.? The boarding pass is issued against the receipt.

Welcome to an era of Electronic-Ticketing, popularly known as e-ticketing. Available on domestic and international airlines, the e-ticket is a winner all the way. Most low-cost carriers sell over 75 per cent of their tickets directly over the Internet ? while all the major international airlines too offer e-tickets through computerised reservation systems such as Galileo and Amadeus. Thus, you can book and pay for a ticket from your home or office computer or through a travel agent linked to Amadeus or Galileo.

nSo what is an e-ticket?

In case you haven?t tried generating one, here?s how its works: e-ticketing lets a customer travel without the bother of collecting physical tickets (and free from the fear of losing them). On making a reservation, and paying using the credit card, the passenger gets a confirmation by e-mail or fax. This document has a reference number of the reservation, with the itinerary, which has to be presented at the time of travel.

Amadeus Electronic Ticketing is a major player in the arena of e-ticketing ? including for some major international airlines. Ankur Bhatia, managing director, Amadeus, explains, ?E-ticketing allows travel agents to transmit ticketing information directly to an international airline?s database. And instead of carrying a paper ticket, the passenger produces his ID and ?itinerary receipt? at the airport.? E-tickets replace the paper-based flight coupons by an electric ticket image that is stored in the airline?s database.

According to Vipul Doshi, CEO InterGlobe Technologies (international technology arm of InterGlobe), ?The next boom in the aviation industry is slated to be e-ticketing. The factors driving this trend are convenience for the traveller and saving in distribution expenses for the airlines. With increasingly unpredictable work hours and travel at short notice, e-ticketing offers an easy and reliable way out.?

No surprise then that the travel industry as a whole has a ?100 per cent commitment to e-ticketing by the end of 2007?. And that?s an approved statement at the annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). As per IATA, e-ticketing will save the industry up to $3 billion per year.

nWho does it?

E-ticketing distribution via Galileo India covers a gamut of airlines. Travel agents hooked on to Galileo reservation system can give you e-tickets for some 18 airlines. That?s Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines, Air Canada, Air France, Al Italia, British Airways, China Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Emirates, KLM, Lufthansa, Swiss Air, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways.

Through Amadeus, you can get an e-ticket on British Airways, Swiss Air, Lufthansa, American Airlines, United Airlines, Air Canada, Singapore Airlines, KLM Royal Dutch/NW, Air France, Delta Airlines, Al Italia Airlines, Continental Airlines, Qantas Airways, US Airways, British Midland, Cathay Pacific, China Air and Aerosvit.

Domestically, Indian Airlines, Jet Airways, Air Deccan, Spice Jet, Kingfisher Airlines and Air Sahara have also gone the e-ticket way.

Has the concept worked? ?Yes,? says Bhatia. ?We started with 10 major airlines in 2004 and today the figure has doubled. Airlines like Lufthansa have made it mandatory for agents to issue e-tickets while most low-cost Indian carriers operate purely on the e-ticket concept.? He adds that India is the fastest growing market in the Asia Pacific region for e-ticketing.

nAdvantage E-ticketing:

This is what e-tickets do: they eliminate the fear of losing tickets (thus no fee for replacement tickets). It?s easier to get a refund or a ticket re-issued, while some airlines even offer miles as an incentive.

The benefits for travel agencies are great: there?s flexibility to serve the customer even at odd hours. E-tickets reduce ticket deliveries, decreasing postal and courier costs and provide real-time information about coupon status ? as there?s automatic on-line reporting on whether the ticket?s exchanged, flown, checked-in or refunded.

Bhatia sums up, ?In all, e-tickets are paperless wonders, that combine ticket issue with delivery into a single operation.?