Travelers who need to buy airline tickets or make itinerary changes at the last minute often wait in long airport lines or pay a premium for expedited delivery service.
But over the next few months, picking up that ticket could be as convenient as stopping for cash at a neighborhood bank’s automated teller machine.
Since testing began last summer, about 275 electronic-ticketing machines have been installed in airport business centers, office and hotel lobbies, and other high-traffic areas across the country. And starting this spring, five companies-including Sabre, a major airline computer-reservations system used by more than 25,000 travel agencies-plan to roll out thousands more.
Most of the current ticketing machines require travelers to make reservations through their travel agent, and prepay by credit card or through a corporate account. The tickets are then printed out by an attendant.
The electronic-ticketing concept got its biggest boost last December, when Dallas-based Sabre announced that it not only would supply necessary computer programming to new ticketing companies but would compete against them with a ticketing system of its own.
Sabre’s entry into the electronic-ticketing derby also means that all four computer reservation systems used by airlines and travel agents have now agreed to share ticketing information with the electronic ticket networks. Before December, when just two reservation systems were participating, less than 50 percent of the nation’s travel agencies could sign up for the new ticket delivery.
Eventually, however, travelers will be able to use unattended machines that operate much the same way as automated teller machines. These self-service ticket dispensers will work for direct airline bookings as well as those made through a travel agent. For example, Columbus, Ohio-based Travel Teller, plans to install in Midwestern airports and banks by the end of 1994 10 self-service machines that are designed to dispense cash, rental car vouchers and entertainment tickets along with airline tickets.
In some ways, the new electronic-ticketing machines are an extension of what travel agents and airlines already provide. Southwest, American and several other airlines have operated self-service ticket machines in airports since the 1970s. And since 1986, large corporate travel agencies have installed about 10,000 “satellite ticket printers” in the offices of their major clients.
But new technology allows the machines to print tickets on all carriers and enables smaller agencies to offer their clients speedy delivery without the expense of overnight mail, courier service or their own on-site satellite printer.
The prospect of easy, direct airline bookings worries many travel agents, who now distribute about 85 percent of all airline tickets. But, notes Stephanie Kenyon, assistant vice president for industry affairs for the American Society of Travel Agents, the new machines can’t handle ticketing problems or provide advice on a complicated itinerary.
“Let’s say you’re a traveler planning to visit Aunt Millie at Christmas, and there’s a fare war going on,” said Kenyon. “You have dozens of choices. Counseling plays a huge role (in a travel agent’s business), and (electronic ticketing) is just one of a myriad services we can provide.”
Indeed, some earlier forays into electronic ticketing have been less than resounding successes. In 1987, Southwest offered youth standby tickets at automated teller machines in several Corpus Christi, Texas, 7-Eleven stores. The experiment wasn’t repeated. Even now, says Charles Zug, Southwest’s manager of business development, “only the frequent, sophisticated traveler” purchases tickets through the airline’s self-service airport machines.
The new generation of electronic-ticketing machines are “innovative, creative and have tons of potential,” says Zug. “But the real question is, do people want it?”
“Initially, (the new machines) will be targeted to business travelers whose plans may change in a matter of hours,” added David Collins, president of the Airlines Reporting Corp., an airline-owned company that regulates the electronic-ticketing machines and acts as a clearinghouse for ticket distribution through travel agencies. “I don’t expect to see them in supermarkets anytime soon.”
But other observers aren’t so sure.
A recent survey of 1,500 consumers by the U.S. Travel Data Center showed a “surprising” 20 percent knew about automated ticketing machines and that 12 percent of respondents would “definitely consider” using them.
And with companies such as Mailboxes Etc. hoping to install the machines in 2,000 locations by the end of the year, traveler recognition could begin to soar.
Electronic-ticketing machines could be “just like the fax machine. . . . When it was first introduced, it was a flop because no one was really sure the document would arrive in good shape,” said Jackie Trimble of Runzheimer International, a Rochester, Wis., business travel-consulting firm.
