Belgium ready for electronic air-ticket

26 July 2007

BRUSSELS – By June of next year the paper airline ticket will be a thing of the past. The Belgian airlines appear to be already well prepared for the transition.

The International Aviation Association IATA has proposed 31 May 2008 as the date when the paper airline ticket should disappear. Currently, four out of five tickets are booked electronically. The IATA hopes that this number will rise to 92 percent by the end of the year.

In Belgium Brussels Airlines, Ryanair, and Jetairfly all say they are ready to change over.

Ryanair has been using electronic tickets for the last 10 years and has fully switched over to this system.

Brussels Airlines has also switched over for the greater part and issued 97.6% of its tickets in June electronically, for example.

“100% is still impossible for us, since other operators still issue paper tickets in connection with code sharing,” says spokesman Thierry Van Eyll.

The partners of Brussels Airlines are already issuing 95% of its tickets electronically.
Jetairfly also mainly uses electronic tickets.

Subject: Belgian news