Discount airline ticket last minute

A quart of milk, a tube of toothpaste, a roll of film and ... airline tickets? One-stop-shopping lists don't usually include travel services, but electronic ticketing technologies recently approved by the airlines may soon put travel tickets in your shopping cart. Consumers can already pick up airline tickets printed out on machines in a handful of office buildings, hotels and retail outlets--plus travel agencies and airline ticket counters. Some supermarkets and convenience stores may soon get on board as well. And carriers are trying out other ways to get travelers through the gate with less turbulence.

Nearly all electronic ticketing machines now in use are operated by clerks who punch out tickets for you, but consumers eventually will operate most ETMs the way bank customers run automated teller machines. The obvious beneficiaries of the technology will be people lacking ready access to a travel agent. Last-minute travelers, for instance, will have an alternative to waiting in lines at the airport to pick up tickets or paying an extra fee for overnight delivery. And travelers whose favorite travel agency isn't nearby will be able to book over the phone and pick up their tickets closer to home.

Just say where. Travelers using an ETM must still call a travel agent to book their tickets, and prepay by credit card. But they can then specify an electronic-ticketing location where they want to pick up their tickets. When they arrive there, all they have to do to get their tickets is present their credit cards for identification (or slide them into a magnetic-stripe reader on a self-service machine). There's usually no extra charge for the service.

So far, two companies control most ETMs. QDAT Corp. offers its QuikTix service at locations convenient to travelers with changing itineraries--25 airports and 125 hotels, including several Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Sheraton and Ritz-Carlton properties. Up to 2,000 sites are planned by the end of 1994. A list of locations is available by calling (602) 990-9498. Mail Boxes Etc., the chain of retail postal-service centers, has been testing ticket delivery at 120 stores in Southern California since August, with plans to expand the service to all of its 2,000 stores nationwide starting next year. The firm also delivers tickets booked directly with United, American or USAir. Customers can call (800) 949-6660 for ticketing locations.

QDAT plans to install several self-service machines by next year. A third company, Airline Computerized Ticketing, has already set up seven self-service machines in Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York and Pittsburgh. All are publicly accessible, generally in office lobbies.

Several barriers may prevent fast tickets from gaining as much currency as the fast cash dispensed by ATMs. Stephanie Kenyon, an assistant vice president with the American Society of Travel Agents, estimates that no more than a fourth of travel agents know how to arrange delivery through a ticketing machine. Travel agencies also have to pay to use the electronic networks, which may make them resistant. And other automated ticketing systems, such as one currently used by Southwest Airlines, have attracted limited traffic.

Stripe swipe. No matter how travelers get their tickets, what they do with them at the airport seems sure to change. United Airlines has been testing electronic gate readers at Chicago's O'Hare airport; tickets have the flight information encoded on a magnetic stripe, and passengers simply swipe them through a reader to board the plane. Bags are checked at the curb. United will soon include some international flights departing from Los Angeles and San Francisco in its test, and most other major airlines are experimenting with the technology. It should be standard for all international flights by 1996.

Some airlines have made tickets themselves obsolete. Morris Air, a Utah-based regional carrier serving 27 cities, abolished tickets in October; passengers get a confirmation number when paying for a reservation, though just showing some ID at the gate will get them on board. ValuJet, which last week began flying between eight Southeastern cities, operates the same way. Some analysts insist that passengers need travel documents in hand to feel assured of their spot on a plane. But Chris McGinnis, an Atlanta-based travel consultant, says that "people have been starved for a discount airline for so long, they're extremely receptive." The obvious plus: As long as passengers remember their names, they can't lose their tickets.