TICKETING FACTS

An airline ticket is a document, created by an airline or a travel agency, to confirm that an individual has purchased a seat on a flight on an aircraft. This document is then used to obtain a boarding pass, at the airport. Then with the boarding pass and the attached ticket, the passenger is allowed to board the aircraft.

Replacement of paper tickets

It is now common for a traveler to pay a fee, assessed by the airline company, for a paper ticket. In fact, many airlines no longer issue paper tickets. IATA (International Air Transport Association) has announced, that as of June 1, 2008, IATA-member airlines will no longer issue any paper tickets.

A ticket is generally only good on the airline for which it was purchased. However, an airline can endorse the ticket, so that it may be accepted by other airlines, sometimes on standby basis or with a confirmed seat. Usually the ticket is for a specific flight. It is also possible to purchase an 'open' ticket, which allows travel on any flight between the destinations listed on the ticket. The cost for doing this is greater than a ticket for a specific flight. Some tickets are refundable. However, the lower cost tickets are usually not refundable and may carry many additional restrictions. A ticket is made up of one or more flight coupons. In the old paper ticket system, these flight coupons were the actual tickets that were used for travel. One flight coupon was used for each leg of the flight.

The carrier is represented by a standardized 2-letter code. In the example above, Thai Airways is TG. The departure and destination cities are represented by IATA airport codes. In the example above, Munich is MUC and Bangkok is BKK. The IATA is the standard setting organization.

Only one person can use a ticket. If multiple people are traveling together, the tickets are linked together by the same record locator or reservation number, which are assigned, if the tickets were purchased at the same time. If not, most airlines can connect the tickets together in their reservation systems. This allows all members in a party to be processed in a group, allowing seat assignments to be together (if available at the time of the assignment).

Cheap tickets

Besides simply obtaining airline tickets from travel agencies, online or at the airport at regular prices, two special types of cheap tickets exist. These include standby tickets and discount tickets.

Standby tickets are obtained at the airport itself, only hours before departure. They represent places freed up by people, who canceled their flight shortly before departure (so the airline has free places available, yet can no longer sell it at a regular price, because of the shortage of time).

Discount tickets are tickets that are only available at travel agencies; they are usually targeted at students. Discount tickets may be 50-70% cheaper than other similar regular tickets (not low-cost).