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Southwest Airlines Is Doing Away With Pneumatic Tubes, Paper Tickets (consumerist.com)
As part of Southwest's biggest tech upgrade in its 45 years of existence, the company will doing away with several of its antiquated practices, including paper tickets and the use of pneumatic tubes to send messages at airports. Consumerist reports: The airline says the goal of these upgrades is to keep planes moving in and out of airports as quickly as possible. "We're looking for minutes," Chief Operating Officer Mike Van de Ven told Bloomberg. "How do I save a minute here, a minute there? In 2017, we are more deliberate in our continuous improvement efforts." The new reservation system will allow Southwest to accept foreign money -- something its rivals can already do -- bounce back faster from storms, and have more control over price changes and schedules. Ramp workers will be getting tablets with real-time information to speed up airplanes' "turn time" -- how quickly they can deboard and reboard passengers and take off again. Tarmac staffers also won't be using pneumatic tubes anymore to send notes via canister about lost luggage and other communications to the cargo workers in charge of calculating jet weight and balance. Digital transmissions will replace that system, as well as printouts for workers who transport bags to and fro. Customers will be seeing changes as well, as the new reservation system means Southwest can ditch paper tickets altogether and stick with electronic tickets only.
So fly a different airline if you insist on having a paper ticket and reserved seat, Southwest won't miss you.
Normally I wouldn't respond, because I'd think that most people would be able to recognize a joke... but because whenever Hyperloop comes up people actually seem to think that it is a pneumatic tube system...
1) Hyperloop Alpha is not a pneumatic tube system. The capsules are not pushed by pressure. Quite the opposite, the tubes are a partial vacuum. Capsules are propelled by short accelerator segments, then spend most of the trip drifting (except for at very low speeds at each end, where it settles down onto electrically-driven wheels).
And for the other side of the spectrum...
2) Hyperloop Alpha is not a maglev vactrain. It is neither maglev nor a vactrain. More to the point, it can't even function in a hard vacuum. Lift is provided not by maglev, but by an airbearing; it's a very-close ground effect aircraft. Because it's not a hard vacuum, air builds up ahead of it; it uses a compressor to shunt the air to behind it and to boost the air bearings.
((Insert "The More You Know" rainbow here))
Aeris Died For Your Sins.
law of large numbers. Pick an aircraft with 140+ seats all sold someone is going to have problems with the device. It will be disruptive.
That said the article is about tickets, which are NOT boarding passes. For those who don't fly often let me explain: I can't remember EVER having a paper plane ticket. e-tickets have been a thing since the 90's even non-computery types usually use e-tickets because that is what their travel agent or secretary does for them. The general public usually books online. and you guessed is issued an e-ticket, which is really just a reservation number/code. They then just show up at the check-in counter and provide their name, destination airport, and the reservation number if they know it and the customer service person looks it up and prints them a boarding pass.
Boarding passes not tickets are what the TSA scans, and what the airline either rips (small carriers that server county airports and the like still do this) or scans at the gate, so they have an accurate passenger manifest and ensure nobody gets on the wrong flight.
Assuming this is talking about tickets and not boarding passes than I would say the time to retire paper ticketing infrastructure was a long time ago as its not useful and I can't think of really any reason why anyone anywhere needs to use. On the other hand paper boarding passes are nice. They are much faster to scan than trying to guess what distance your cell phone screen needs to be held at so they can read the QR code. I really wish people would not do that. When you use those dumb wallet apps or even the airlines own app you are holding up the line, you are THAT GUY and I hate you!
Additionally after a long week onsite somewhere when I am on my way home I'd like to be able to watch the airlines movies streamed over wifi to my phone or read a book with the kindle app and not fear that a dead battery is going to complicate getting on my connecting flight! Its nice to know I can just pull that paper pass out of my pocket and go, even if I have drained my phone watching "Die Hard 14 - People are still leaving piles of money in strange places" on the plane.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I work in the airline IT world. "Paper tickets" aren't the paper boarding passes you print out at the kiosk. These are actual tickets issued at travel agents or airport ticket counters, and go back to a time when you could buy a ticket independent of a reservation or seat assignment. In fact, travel agents used to be able to manually hand-write them and the only thing keeping them secure was that ticket stock was controlled. It's similar to buying a train ticket for a commuter railroad from the machine at the station...unless you're reserving a seat, you can exchange it for a seat on whatever train you get on. Same went for paper tickets -- if you had a ticket that said "JFK to LAX" you could go to the airport and check in on any flight if you had an open reservation.
The article mentions that they're doing this to get rid of paper buddy passes, which really are the only paper tickets most domestic airlines deal with these days. It's incredibly rare to process paper tickets for passengers these days.
I for me think that's fine and dandy but be careful not to throw out the good with the bad. Electronic-only boarding passes? How am I supposed to hold those? So they're now requiring me to carry a mobile phone or tablet just to hold that ticket?
The article talked about paper tickets not paper boarding passes. They are not the same thing. A paper ticket is a document that holds the value of your journey, it is like cash and similar to cash, expensive to handle. A boarding pass is a document that says you may get on the plane and on most airlines indicates your seat assignment. The boarding pass holds no monetary value. The boarding pass typically has a ticket reference number on it, but it is not the actual ticket. All other airlines that I am aware of (at least the majors in the US) got rid of paper tickets years ago, they all still have options for paper boarding passes. I don't fly Southwest due to their boarding process and lack of assigned seats, so I wasn't aware but was surprised to hear that an airline was still using paper tickets.
Ha!
No, you misunderstand. You must be under 35 or so.
Back in the 20th century, Airlines issues paper tickets. They're like a ticket to a play, sporting event. etc. They mailed you these tickets. Everyone freaked out about losing them or forgetting them. If you lost them or forgot them, you had to buy another one. It sucked.
Then sometime in the 90s or so, the airlines switched to all electronic tickets. They were tied to your identity. What you're talking about it a "boarding pass". Those aren't going away.
It's incredibly shocking though that Southwest still has this relic of the 20th century.