> When you buy a flight or a journey, you are actually buying a ticket. This used to be a paper ticket, but now it's electronic. But the actual process is the same as before, it's just an electronic implementation of the paper. The ticket is your proof to the airline that you paid an organisation it trusts for the flight. The airline will only distribute its unique ticket paper to travel agents it trusts.
Back a very long time ago, I worked for a company that had a lot of traveling employees. We were our own travel agent and had on-site all of the things a retail travel agent (at the time) had. As a junior sysadmin, I was responsible for the computer parts, specifically getting the ticket printing machine placed in a secure room--TWO keys and a reinforced door and door frame--and working with our telco vendor to get the dedicated circuit connected to the nearest Sabre Global Distribution System hub.
One day, the ticket printing machine experienced a fault and ran a whole stack of ticket paper through at high speed, shredding all of the blank ticket stock we had. Though it didn't look like it at the time, this wound up being an absolute nightmare. We could only get a certain amount of ticket stock at a time (since there were few digital controls, if I took a blank ticket and typed my own details onto it, free flight!...until someone matched up the audit number). We couldn't just ring up our sponsoring corporate travel agency and ask for more ticket stock because they had the same limitations on themselves.
I spent all weekend picking all of the pieces out of the machine and taping them back together to get the audit numbers off of enough (I think 90%) of the destroyed ticket stock, along with pictures of the shredded pile and of the inside of and nearby the machine. The pictures were developed at a K-Mart and the whole works sent off via FedEx first-AM overnight (the most expensive parcel I'd ever shipped, $135 at the time) to an address somewhere in Colorado. Three hours after delivery, I had a phone call saying our request for replacement ticket stock was granted and they sent a stack of ticket stock via hand-delivered courier who I had to meet at the nearby airport.
Fortunately we didn't need to issue any tickets for our employees to travel that weekend.
Thieves used to break into (relatively unsecured) travel agencies, steal the blank paper tickets, and resell them at astronomical markup, with the agency "on the hook" for paying the maximum value of the tickets stolen.
Basically, "ticket paper" was like a blank check which you could fill in with a pencil saying "$10,000: first class ticket from NYC to LON", and the airline would accept that ticket, and reconcile it _back_ to the original issuing agent (who didn't issue the ticket, but instead had it stolen).
Once "the paper" was out there, it was prohibitively expensive to maintain and distribute a "rejection database" of serial numbers at all points-of-boarding, so tickets were accepted "at face value" rather than denying boarding.
As the world has become more connected and digitized, yes, airline use cases have always been one of the first to take advantage of integrating commerce and technology. SABRE is one of the oldest technology companies, and probably one of the oldest, most important "continual use" databases around. https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/sabre/ ...great history in that article!
> The thieves are well organized, stealing thousands of blank tickets at a time, forging them and typically reselling them for $200 to $10,000 apiece, authorities said.
> “The airlines, in my humble opinion, could stop this,” said a Westlake Village travel agent who was recently held at gunpoint and tied up while thieves ransacked his business. Officials with the American Society of Travel Agents, which represents more than 11,000 agencies nationally, agree.
> Thieves used to break into (relatively unsecured) travel agencies, steal the blank paper tickets, and resell them at astronomical markup, with the agency "on the hook" for paying the maximum value of the tickets stolen.
As I recall, the room security for the ticket printer was a requirement of our sponsoring travel agency and our insurance company. I had to meet with a representative of our insurance company, a person from The Hartford who was dressed identically to an IBM salesperson of old, for them to inspect the arrangements. According to my boss, who was in the meetings to get set up, we were just barely a big enough company that our owner (the company was private at the time) didn't have to sign a personal guarantee for something like $3 million worth of potential ticket losses.
Of course, us eggheads in the IT department didn't fully know any of this until the stupid printer blew up.
Oh and thank you for the links. I did kind of wonder where those incredibly cheap but shady looking travel deals in the classifieds came from...
Boarded a plane today. Me and my son both have pre check. His digital boarding pass didn’t have pre check on it. They sent him to regular security. I walked through with his paper boarding pass (we got when checking luggage), so he had to go get another one. His second boarding pass had pre check on it. Whatever this system is, this is ridiculous. These tickets were bought together, and our numbers were entered correctly.
I half wondered if there was a technical glitch when generating his boarding pass. Like, an unavailable API endpoint.
My latest “check in” story. If you don’t have pre check on your digital or paper boarding pass, request another. And remember to check.
And that may not be all that's needed. I recently went through the TSA Precheck line (my ticket had the little Pre heck logo on it) but the check-in dude did not give me the laminated poster board that said "Precheck" on it. I don't fly often enough to have noticed, so when I got to the security apparatus 15 feet further I was treated as non-Precheck. It did not matter that I could show my ticket had the appropriate logo on it. No card, no Precheck. One more slap in the face from the Security Theater.
From my anecdotal experience, your boarding pass may have TSA precheck mark. This has been sufficient for me to go into the TSA precheck line (vs regular default line).
Also, I usually see a person at the precheck line entrance screening people for boarding passes with the precheck mark. Otherwise they will direct you to the regular line.
Some of the smaller airports that I've been through give you a laminated PreCheck card after they've checked your ID and ticket. You hold onto that for a few seconds until you're called up for the next stage of the process. The officer takes the card, places a PreCheck indicator on the belt alongside your luggage, then un-ropes the metal detector and waves you through. Large airports have dedicated lines for PreCheck and don't require all this.
For some airports with low amounts of traffic, there isn't a separate precheck line, so you're just given some sort of marker that tells the workers to treat you as a precheck member in the standard line.
What is most ridiculous about all the rules of security theater is that its toothless. I have seen multiple people jump the security line, just walk up around it and throw their stuff on the conveyer ahead of people, then they walk immediately into the scanner cutting off whoever was about to get in next. Some people in line say something out loud but most people just stand there stunned. TSA agents didn't even flinch. I think they are trained not to confront people who line jump, and the line jumpers are taking advantage of that big time, at least at the big busy airports.
I was that person once, but it was because my BP wouldn’t scan. (Bad print). Dude told me where to reprint and when I got back a few minutes later and barged my way to the front, he had already vanished. Ugh, but nobody really questioned.
Then again, they probably wouldn’t remember who it was.
Conversely, I've talked with people that travel often or are older/a certain demographic that often receive PreCheck, even though they haven't paid for it etc.
Tickets themselves don't have your PreCheck number on them, but the number is provided when purchasing the ticket (possibly can be provided later as well.) OP indicated "our numbers were entered correctly" so I assume they provided their PreCheck numbers at some point in the process.
> Some airlines (particularly non-U.S. ones) will completely void your ticket (meaning that it loses all value) if you miss a flight after checking in. (Most U.S. airlines do not do this.)
Does this mean that in the US, if I miss my flight, my ticket is still somehow valid? I have never heard of this.
Yes missing flights is surprisingly not too big a deal, even if it is your own fault. Most airlines will do their best to rebook you.
The main reason for that is that there was never really a seat booked with your name on it. If you don't make it, it simply goes to someone else who was on standby.
Of course the flip side of it is that in rare cases you won't get your seat even if you do make it in time, as was the subject of some famous incidents.
This is really interesting. As a non-U.S. based and infrequent traveller, I had always just assumed that you lost the value of the ticket if you missed the trip. I never really understood sitcoms where no one seems to care if they missed their flights or not, but this would make a lot of sense.
I've missed maybe five or so domestic flights on "legacy" US airlines (American/Delta/United). If I recall correctly, on all but one of those I was rebooked. On the remaining one I was not rebooked; the airline tried to accommodate me but they couldn't get me where I was going in time for the thing I was going to.
That being said, I do care if I miss my flight, because it's obviously a pain even if you do get rebooked!
This is why, as a UK based traveller, I aim to get to the airport for international flights so that I can check in when checkin opens 3 hours before the flight.
At least I'm usually sat in a comfortable lounge for the extra time, and can get a few things done, or just relax and read.
Most US based airlines will charge you a rebooking fee however, so it’s not completely hassle free. It’s often around $80-100 USD. Southwest Airlines is the only major carrier I know that does not charge this fee.
Having flow a lot after living in different countries, the US major airlines used to be pretty flexible compared to others. I can recall landing at a connecting airport, strolling up to a gate for an earlier flight and asking if I could switch and after checking it was usually “sure”. Missed flights rebooked, etc.
I recall connecting in Vancouver with Air Canada and asking the same and the answer was “thatll be $130 to change your ticket”. This is with a half empty flight leaving in 30 min.
I know United started charging some fee for last minute flight changes, but it’s way better than other airlines.
> I can recall landing at a connecting airport, strolling up to a gate for an earlier flight and asking if I could switch and after checking it was usually “sure”.
They kinda like it when you do this: it gives them more flexibility. Better to keep the later flights in the day emptier just in case there’s a sudden need. And reduces their chances of owing you compensation.
The ticket itself is not valid, because you obviously can't get on a flight that has already left. But the ticket still has value (what you paid for it) because you didn't use it. I have never missed a flight before, but I've also never heard of anyone in the US losing the value of their ticket because they missed their flight.
I saw a video recently of a person who was denied boarding due to being visibly intoxicated. The process started with the gate agent offering to book them on another flight, and devolved into the person being banned from the airline. But they still received a full refund for their unused ticket.
I missed a flight in Oslo two years ago and the counter agent looked at me like I was insane to suggest that they airline would rebook me. In Norway it was clear that the $800 ticket was completely wasted if I got delayed on the way to the airport.
That may explain why the European ultra-low-cost airlines are even cheaper, while providing a similar service.
People who miss their flight on purpose aren't great for revenue (no vastly overpriced food, overweight luggage fees etc), but people who miss flights by mistake end up paying €250 (rather than €20) for the next flight.
Yeah, I was on the way to the airport the other day, my meeting got cancelled, so I called on the way 75 mins pre departure, and they just gave me a credit for the cost, zero hassle, and I went home.
Yes, in my experience tickets are often not refundable but they do have value that can be applied to another flight if for whatever reason you become unable to use the ticket on the flight originally booked.
>I saw a video recently of a person who was denied boarding due to being visibly intoxicated. The process started with the gate agent offering to book them on another flight, and devolved into the person being banned from the airline. But they still received a full refund for their unused ticket.
More that a decade ago I was doing standards work in Amsterdam, after a long weekend of sitting in a conference room with 12+ people going over excel spreadsheets to edit a bunch of recurring text all over the place that was then used to generate the documentation / schema for the standards under discussion we were to catch a flight back to Copenhagen.
My coworker and I went to get a late lunch before heading back, I don't drink but he did so he took a big Heineken. Then we went to the airport. We checked in fine, and then we went to wait for the flight in the boarding area.
While waiting my coworker went to the bathroom. I decided what I really needed to do was some stretches because of how excruciatingly cramped up my muscles were from sitting for a whole weekend.
At the time I was in exceptionally good shape as I did Capoeira 3-5 times a week 3-4 hours a training, yoga classes, and weight training. So of course I was doing all sorts of funny stuff like balancing with one leg and the foot of the other held in my hand for several minutes, and going in a bridge pose, doing pushups, jumping jacks, standing on my hands, doing handstands and other stuff like that. My coworker was a long time in the bathroom, maybe there was a line.
While I was exercising one of the attendants from the flight we were supposed to get on came out and told me I would not be allowed to fly because I was obviously intoxicated.
Now I towered over the guy, I was in a bad mood from the weekend already, and frankly, he was just the most alcoholic looking Dane you could imagine, with a comical little pug nose red and purplish like the cartoon vision of a town drunk from the 1940s. So I nearly lost my temper at him, and was near to getting stranded in Amsterdam because of how irritated I was by the ludicrous assertion that anyone doing the things I was doing could possibly be drunk!
Just then my coworker came out and saved me, when he was told I was being accused of being drunk he started laughing because of course in Denmark a person who doesn't drink is already sort of funny.
So after some convincing I was let on to the plane. Later, after we lifted off, the little dipsomaniac steward came to apologize to me and as a way of making up for it said my coworker and I could have free drinks! He suggested a nice beer, or some wine, or some champagne. Anything I wanted! I said - I will have a Coke thank you. (but I was not able to do it without sounding annoyed)
My coworker took a red wine. He had laughing bouts several times on the flight back.
Personal anecdote: I've found the tickets can be refunded/transferred. The airline recommended a 45min layover, and the airport's immigration machines broke and we were stuck in line for hours, missing our domestic flight in a separate area of the airport. In this case, I found out that the airline would've worked with me to reschedule another flight, if I could get ahold of them on the phone. Maybe not all airlines are like this, just one case.
Personal counteranecdote: This depends on how it's booked. A so-called "hacker fare" from Kayak or Orbitz or Expedia or someone last year that involved two different underlying carrier bookings had a 45 minute connection between them. The covid paperwork check line took 90 minutes due to long lines and low staffing in the transfer airport.
The carrier for the second constituent booking said FOAD when asked about a rebooking after the flight had left. The reseller (I forget if it was Kayak or Orbitz or Expedia) refused a refund. We ended up having to book a replacement ticket for over $1000, and an overnight hotel stay.
American Express eventually sided with the merchant when I tried to do a chargeback for being sold an impossible itinerary. It made the trip substantially more expensive and +28 hours.
I'm not sure who should be liable for this, but I'm pretty sure it's not me. Every other party in the transaction chain passed the buck and I was the one who had to pay.
This is exactly why overbooking exists. Airlines expect that a certain percentage of their passengers won't make the flight, for whatever reason, so they sell a few extra tickets so the seats won't be empty.
I have missed a few flights and if the ticket agent is feeling nice that day, they will traditionally rebook you on a flight later that day or the next day.
Missing your flight is one of those things where while it's a rare event for you it's a common event for the airline. For them people missing their flight for a lame reason is just noise compared to people missing flights for other reasons.
Think about it. A flight to Atlanta is delayed due to weather or a mechanical issue? That's 100 people that just missed their connection. Vs random people missing flights is very predictable.
Typically they'll rebook you on a later flight. Especially if you call them beforehand because then they can resell your seat. Depending on the ticket and the airline you may be charged a fee. You may end up having to wait standby.
I believe it relates to being able to approach a gate agent and having them rebook you on a later/tomorrow flight as a courtesy, after you checked-in but missed a flight because you dozed off, didn't watch the time, had a medical issue, couldn't find the gate in a huge airport, missed the connection from an inbound flight, etc. Really it's an extension of the US customer service ethos.
A "ticket" may include more than just one leg of the journey - you could have a two stage ticket, SAN-JFK-CDG - and missing the SAN-JFK flight may or may not void your JFK-CDG ticket (it may be that the second flight leaves enough time to scramble and get to it another way).
I often am a sucker for those. I'm 188cm tall (6'2-ish). Long legs. For about $10 per hour of flight time, I'll pay more for a couple extra inches of leg room.
During boarding, I have sometimes mentioned to the boarding agent or air staff that if someone in an exit row isn't able to perform the exit row duties, I'm happy to trade seats. A couple of times it's even worked.
Being 2.08m tall (6’10) I _have_ to always pay extra because I don’t fit in a regular seat.
Many years ago at check in I would automatically be put on the exit row but nowadays that doesn’t happen anymore.
So now I need to book very early because otherwise the exit row seats are all gone.
I'm not quite as tall, but still quite tall (slightly under 2m), and I'm still not sure what I prefer: the exit row seats or regular seats. The problem with the exit row seats are that you're "boxed in" due to the meal trays being stored in the side of the seat, so the sides aren't open. I'm not fat by any means, but even for me it's really annoying especially on longer flights: my hips start to hurt.
Last time I had a flight I got a fairly good deal on a business class seat. That was quite nice.
I paid for the "upgrade" behind the empty exit row on a transatlantic flight once and it was kind of the worst flight I ever had.
Usually only my legs hurt from being cramped in but on that flight we were somehow sitting directly in the vent of the A/C - it was the first time I needed a blanket and had a sore throat after just a few hours in the plane. Getting up and moving 3m to the left it was completely fine, so surely not just coincidentally getting a cold... And the entertainment/cupholder foldout thingy also was really flimsy and weird.
I've assumed for a while that's the real reason they have it any more. Years ago it made sense that you checked in when you got to the airport so they knew you were physically there and they wouldn't give away your seat. But now, checking in from home up to 72 hours in advance sometimes completely fails for that purpose.
There is also quite a bit of reliance on the check-in process for Z/employee fares, etc. It's typical that FAs/pilots/etc will commute on other airlines, and often will "spray" fares around depending on flight loads. IE, you need a connecting flight to your home base, the one you booked is oversold by two seats and almost everyone has checked in, so you book another flight that leaves an hour later, but show up at the airport for the first flight in case there's a seat available, etc.
Ultimately your employer only gets billed for the flight you actually board, so there's low risk in spraying out and checking in for several flights. Also when flying standby, prioritization for many airlines involves check-in order (and also they'll often prioritize paying customers, friends/family, then their own employees over other carriers' employees, or similar).
Probably a database/messaging consistency check via human, I wonder what a dropped packet is, back then. E.g. paper jam on the fax machine, "Hey what was that fax?" "Dunno, the machine ate it.".
I once accompanied a travelling family member to the airport, and the airline didn't have a record of her ticket! This was in the pre-historic times before there was e-tickets, mobile checkin, etc.
Just imagine if other forms of transport used the same ticketing system...
"I'm sorry sir, you can't get on the 09:03 Southbound Red Line express subway because you didn't check in 40 minutes before departure. Check in has now closed, so you'll have to buy a new ticket."
Yes! I ran into that with a coach bus one time (trip from some big Boston transit hub to NYC). I wanted to get on the bus but they told me I had to check in at some gate first, and I was like, “what? We have to do this like an airport?”
And I didn’t have to do that for the first leg (from NYC Chinatown).
Far too many industries these days are switching to this airline model of screwing the customer who has no choice but to go for this particular industry. Dynamic pricing is terrible. Either sell out your inventory or don't.
It's pointless. You need to check your luggage and verify your documents anyway, electronic check-in is a waste of time... I used to do it, now I don't.
I guess it depends? For business travel it’s carry on only and documents are verified at security.
I had the process down perfectly where I could leave home and be at the gate, ready to board, 30 minutes later. Jump out of the cab, go to pre-check line, 5 min later walking to gate.
Because they oversubscribe seats for sale. The check-in helps them see when that's a problem. Similarly, if it prompts a bunch of people to change flights, and the flight is very undersold, they might meld two flights together as a single one.
> You probably have noticed that you often buy your flight from a different company than the airline itself.
What? No, never. I figured out long ago that one carrier always has the best rates for my city, middlemen rarely/never cost less, and I've got the frequent flier card and the points. I thought everyone who flew domestically more than twice a year did that.
I thought the check-in was just to confirm "yes I'm really really going to fly tomorrow" so they can try to fill any unclaimed seats.
> one carrier always has the best rates for my city, middlemen rarely/never cost less
Couple of things: First, the post is from 2014 which was still during the rise of online travel agents like Expedia and Orbitz and Travelocity and all of their kin. There was a lot of money sloshing around in those companies to try to give "exclusive discounts" to customers so that people would become accustomed to using the online travel agent instead of booking direct. Bundled travel packages are still very much a part of this and the spiff from a hotel being included can be used to buy down the cost of your ticket so the package looks cheaper.
Second, if you are in a city where one carrier is in a position to dominate the rates for your area, an online travel agent isn't going to help you much and the carriers to your area know this so there's little incentive to try to slash prices to compete. But related to this is that a lot of people don't know that, so they still go to the sites they see advertised on TV or elsewhere and plug in a starting point, a destination, some dates, then sort "lowest to highest" and pick the smallest number next to the $ sign.
You've never once flown an itinerary with two airlines on it? That's a very routine use case, for example hop on an American flight to London connecting to a BA flight to Glasgow or something? In that case you bought your ticket from a different company (AA) than the airline you're flying (BA on the second leg).
That's just one of a million examples. For complex travel arrangements it's just normal.
You can get a cheaper ticket with an agent than with an airline but this would be a ticket attached to certain conditions (for example, it can only be sold together with a hotel room)
Another possibility is that you do a search and find it per X and then go to an agent and they find it cheaper but because they know how to look around your dates and possibilities you might not know (connection alternatives, etc).
But to be fair, even if it's a little more expensive I prefer the peace of mind of dealing with one vendor instead of two vendors if anything happens.
> You can get a cheaper ticket with an agent than with an airline but this would be a ticket attached to certain conditions (for example, it can only be sold together with a hotel room)
Ticket pricing is unpredictable and really depends on your location and route.
A few times I used Expedia instead of the airline, and it was both cheaper and allowed flexible total unconditional cancellation within a short time after buying.
Quite helpful when you need to arrange multiple bookings, hotels, etc. on short notice with changing availability. Plus there’s that time I literally bought a same day ticket just to enter HKIA and meet arriving friend (a ticket was required due to protests). Returned it as soon as I passed the guards. With that low-cost airline it wouldn’t be possible directly, and even if somehow it was the ordinary refund would’ve taken days. (After I saw their ticket verification procedures I realized a even a well-done fake might have sufficed, but you don’t want to leave stuff like that to chance.)
That said, in some countries I have never seen agents offer better options than airlines.
The problem is that you're not dealing with one vendor though: you're actually dealing with N+1, where the +1 is just an opaque intermediary to the N services it's brokering/reselling.
When there are no issues, this works fine.
If there are issues? Be prepared to do the customer service tango, and hope that the person at check-in understands how $intermediary actually resells their stuff and knows the right knobs to twiddle, because otherwise you're shit outta luck.
> I figured out long ago that one carrier always has the best rates for my city, middlemen rarely/never cost less
Is this WN out of Burbank or something? Your experience (to the first point) is not typical. To the second point, even restricting to one carrier, using a different ticketing carrier can indeed be advantageous, especially if you're using credit card-derived points.
Now, if you're at an airport only served by a single (U)LCC I can see both points but that seems rare.
If you are planning to travel, always check if you actually got a ETicket (ETK) number. Most airlines companies do not really have all kinds of implementations with end to end transactions. It will happen to you maybe once in your whole flight traveler life.
-> You get both the money taken out of your credit card plus an airline
confirmation of your booking AND a booking number. However if the ETK number is missing you dont have a ticket and wont be allowed to fly.
Tip to single bachelors: If the check-in counter is not too busy, and the ground hostess is attractive, it is a good pick up line. Go on asking if it happens frequently to other passengers and more frequently with other companies than others :-))
Back a very long time ago, I worked for a company that had a lot of traveling employees. We were our own travel agent and had on-site all of the things a retail travel agent (at the time) had. As a junior sysadmin, I was responsible for the computer parts, specifically getting the ticket printing machine placed in a secure room--TWO keys and a reinforced door and door frame--and working with our telco vendor to get the dedicated circuit connected to the nearest Sabre Global Distribution System hub.
One day, the ticket printing machine experienced a fault and ran a whole stack of ticket paper through at high speed, shredding all of the blank ticket stock we had. Though it didn't look like it at the time, this wound up being an absolute nightmare. We could only get a certain amount of ticket stock at a time (since there were few digital controls, if I took a blank ticket and typed my own details onto it, free flight!...until someone matched up the audit number). We couldn't just ring up our sponsoring corporate travel agency and ask for more ticket stock because they had the same limitations on themselves.
I spent all weekend picking all of the pieces out of the machine and taping them back together to get the audit numbers off of enough (I think 90%) of the destroyed ticket stock, along with pictures of the shredded pile and of the inside of and nearby the machine. The pictures were developed at a K-Mart and the whole works sent off via FedEx first-AM overnight (the most expensive parcel I'd ever shipped, $135 at the time) to an address somewhere in Colorado. Three hours after delivery, I had a phone call saying our request for replacement ticket stock was granted and they sent a stack of ticket stock via hand-delivered courier who I had to meet at the nearby airport.
Fortunately we didn't need to issue any tickets for our employees to travel that weekend.