Why do airlines charge so much for paper tickets?

Question

Why is it that if I buy a trip on an airline, getting an actual paper ticket costs fifty dollars more? That's very suspicious.

Answer 1

The airlines are trying to eliminate paper tickets all together as a method of cutting costs. According to the USAToday article linked below, printing paper tickets and shipping them to customers was, at the time the article printed, the fourth largest expense in an airline's operations, behind fuel, labor and aircraft. The article is a bit old so I'm sure that's not #4 any more, but it's still more expensive than just printing the ticket and sticking it in the mail. By steering passengers to using e-tickets, the airlines have been able to cut way back on the number of ticketing agents they need at the ticket counters (if you hold a paper ticket you must check in at the counter to get your boarding pass), as well as renting smaller counter spaces (or not renting bigger spaces when the customer numbers go up). In an industry where most of the players are constantly on the verge of bankruptcy, pushing the e-tickets really makes a difference.

For what it's worth, I think the service fees are a little higher than they should be. Not outrageous markups because all those ticket agents are union employees and paying for them to be there just to check me in has got to be extremely expensive. But I also think they are marking it up a little more than they have to because they really want to squash the demand for this service.

Answer 2

We don't get charged for them in Australia, so I can't help.