Paper Ticket Countdown

On June 1st, paper tickets will begin going the way of the rotary phone and catho-de-ray tubes. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) started its countdown to eliminate the paper tickets issued by travel agencies which account for 80% of all tickets issued. E-tickets are used in 97% of air travel in the U.S, but only 54% of air trael in the other countries like Russia-who banned e-tickets until last year.

NWA is among the international leaders in the transfer from paper to e-tickets - which made up 99.5% of the global NWA ticket sales in January 2008. E-tickets have made it possible for Northwest to offer an array of technology-based customer services including self-service check-in on nwa.com, self-service kiosks at the airport, and the ability for customers to make changes to tickets online and smoother customer service handling during irregular operations.

Accoding to IATA, the switch will save the airlines industry $3 billion a year.

NWA was also the first carrier in the world to reach Interline E-Ticketing (IET) agreements with 100 carriers. Interline e-ticket enables a passenger to use a single e-ticket on any airline with an agreement.

NWA first interline e-ticketing agreement was with Continental in October 2000 followed by United in 2001. The number of agreements has nearly doubled in each year. Northwest has IET agreements with all SkyTeam Partners and continues to led the industry, having implemented 137 IET agreements as of April 22.