Continental Airlines today announced plans to eliminate paper tickets by
the end of this year for all travel on the airline, including interline
(multi-carrier) tickets. As a part of this program, Continental has
terminated 50 interline ticketing and baggage agreements with other
carriers that have not implemented electronic interline capabilities.
By the end of 2004, Continental expects all of its travelers will be using
convenient eTickets, which will reduce loss, theft and paperwork hassles
for the airline and its customers. “Because of the cost savings
opportunity, we are quite serious about our paperless objective and are
doing everything we can to make one hundred percent paperless travel on
Continental a reality,” said David Grizzle, Continental’s Senior Vice
President - Corporate Development. Currently, 95 percent of Continental’s
domestic customers are traveling on eTickets and 88 percent systemwide.
eTickets are currently valid at all of the 266 airports served by
Continental around the world. After this year, Continental plans to
eliminate issuing and accepting paper tickets entirely, including for
travel on all international flights.

Continental is an industry leader in interline eTicket technology and
currently has 20 eTicket partners. Continental currently has more than 180
interline ticketing and baggage agreements with other airlines worldwide,
permitting customers to create travel itineraries involving two or more
carriers with a single ticket. Continental looks forward to bringing
eTicket technology to each of its interline agreements.
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