Electronic ticketing is gradually reaching new heights in the airline industry ­ according to the International Air Transport Association (Iata), as much as 80 per cent of the world’s airline tickets are now electronic.

In 2004, the association set a deadline to achieve 100 per cent global penetration of e-ticketing by the end of 2007.

But the goalposts have recently changed, and at Iata’s annual conference in early June, the deadline was extended by five months to the end of May 2008.

Although Iata expects e-ticketing levels to hit 92 per cent by the end of this year, the extension allows extra time for carriers to complete the international e-ticketing agreement.

Many of the world’s top airlines have almost reached the maximum levels. British Airways (BA) says 95 per cent of its tickets are electronic, while it is also automating other areas of its business.

The airline is considering a system for passengers to check in and board flights using a barcode sent to their mobile phones via text message.

The new technology will begin trials at the end of the year and is the culmination of an industry-wide move towards the promise of greater efficiencies using e-ticketing.

As well as mobile ticketing, BA’s freight division is to take part in the world’s first trial to replace paper documents with electronic processes. Electronic freight is another of Iata’s priorities, which the association says will not only simplify business processes but also offer carriers the potential for significant cost savings.

But while more advanced carriers such as BA are carrying out trials of new technologies, countries with weaker technology infrastructures remain the main hurdle to global e-ticketing.

At the root of such problems is a lack of interoperability between carriers and ground operators that do not have a sufficient technology infrastructure to support e-ticketing, says Iata’s e-ticketing project director Bryan Wilson.

While 44 per cent of cross-carrier traffic is now electronic, as much as 56 per cent of journeys taken using two or more different carriers are still being processed using paper tickets, according to Iata’s latest figures.

Such integration is possibly the hardest part of the transition, says Wilson, who sees the last leg as the most difficult challenge so far.

“We’re proceeding at a good rate of e-ticket penetration, but if a passenger has a journey planned with multiple airlines the data has to be transferred between airlines and that is much harder to process electronically,” he says.

Despite the challenges, e-ticketing is accepted as the future for administration within the airline industry ­ and it is not just the airlines that have accepted it.

A recent Iata poll found that 80 per cent of passengers prefer the convenience of e-tickets over paper tickets.

The last group to require convincing will be the stakeholders in countries without the technology infrastructure required for e-ticketing ­ and everything is dependent upon them to make further advances.

“It’s not a question of getting going,” says Wilson. “It’s a question of rolling out e-ticketing in every market and improving interoperability between airlines.”

The worldwide rollout of an e-ticket-enabled sales distribution system is a very complex task, he says. There are five global distribution system (GDS) suppliers: Sabre, Amadeus, Galileo, Worldspan and Abacus, as well as additional providers in Japan, Korea and China.

“Each airline has to commission the GDS system it uses to turn on its e-ticket capability,” says Wilson.

“The airline has to say, for instance, that it is ready for e-tickets to be used in Italy and it has to have a separate conversation with every system.”

The complex communication chain is something BA has successfully managed, says e-ticket project manager Tim Collet, with the airline on track to meeting the original Iata deadline. It will not issue paper tickets in 2008.

More than 95 per cent of BA tickets are sold as e-tickets and 91 per cent of tickets flown are electronic.

“The reason for the difference is there is often a lag between selling a ticket and when the passenger flies,” says Collet.

“It also includes tickets issued from other airlines that are as not as advanced as us, which is a big challenge because we fly to 200 airports around the world and some are not e-ticket-enabled.”

BA subsequently has to change its check-in systems for such destinations, without the technology infrastructure to enable e-ticketing.

And alongside the airport systems that need upgrading, interoperability between other airlines for passengers planning a journey with multiple carriers is regularly an issue.

“Interline journeys means we have to put in links with other airlines through our service provider Amadeus,” says Collet.

Bringing together different components of air travel processing means that every condition must be in place before a system can work without paper tickets.

But once the hurdle of working with other airlines and airports has been successfully managed, Collet says the benefits to both customers and airlines will be enormous.

“Passengers can get their tickets immediately, make changes up to 30 minutes before check-in closes and will never be able to lose their e-ticket as it can be retrieved,” he says.

When the system is fully operational on a global level, the main benefit for carriers will be that a paperless environment leads to cost reductions.