Remember paper? We live in an electronic age, where people own devices that contain entire lives in the palm of a hand. Digital communication networks have evolved to the point where the mythical paperless office is hurtling towards inevitable reality. Paper is history!
The travel industry is no different with virtually all tickets and confirmations being issued electronically. This saves the environment, saves costs, and is much more convenient – apparently. Despite this, probably the most printed documents in an office are travel documents!
Why Do Businesses Print Documents?
When I worked as a personal assistant a few years ago, our travelling executives had entire itineraries printed and bundled up into a pack. Each one contained a summary of the travel, printed boarding passes, printed flight confirmations as backup and a sheet of blank company green paper in between each day to for ease of access. How incredibly wasteful for something so ephemeral!
Fast-forward a few years and the personal assistants at my current place of employment continue to print all the flight itineraries on paper. Why? These are provided as backup to the Finance Department each month for credit card reconciliation. That paperless office might not be so close after all!
Why Do People Print Documents?
My guess is that most people print documents so they have something to point at and shake about on those rare occasions when computer says no. Who wants to be stranded at an airport with no way to get online and show your e-mail confirmation with the clock ticking down before a plane leaves? Nobody.
The other reason is sheer habit. It is comforting for people to have their documents with them that say what flight they are on, what hotel they have to go to and so on. It just makes sense. Some places still insist on you bringing your paper documents with you to show on arrival. Tour companies are especially guilty of this one!
Confessions of a Flight Detective
I am a person who does print the documents. I have twenty separate bookings coming up and I was sick of my personal e-mail account being full of confirmations so I printed them and then deleted them. Cue immediate guilt that I was acting extremely 20th century about things!
There is no reason anyone requires any of the e-mails or the printed items. Airlines have apps to hold all the bookings, electronic boarding passes are provided and all the companies will have your booking in their computer. Despite this, there is still something in me that needs to have a paper copy and it’s a habit I need to break.
Overall Thoughts
Perhaps my 2017 resolution should be to delete the e-mails and not print paper copies of my confirmations. It’s time to embrace the 21st century and trust the technology that permeates my life.
Are you a printer or are you a digital warrior? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this issue. Thank you for reading and leave your comments or questions below.
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Featured image from Oneworld Alliance.
Uh, because most airlines require you to be able to present a printed ticket for international travel?
I wouldn’t agree with you on that. In Europe I generally just show my Passport and they go ahead and issue the boarding passes and check-in the bags. I can’t remember a time I was asked for my booking reference or anything like that. I agree things differ from place to place though! Thanks for the comment!
Definitely not the case in Asia and Australia. You need to have a copy of the ticket on your person so you can produce it on demand.
Not in my experience in Australia at any rate. I’ll keep a close eye on it when I’m next back in that area of the world in April.
LOL – try checking into a hotel in Asia without a physical copy of the ‘Travel Voucher’. Good luck with that one.
But I largely agree –> most of the time its irrelevant… until your iPhone battery expires.
Where hotels are pre-paid and issue a voucher, sure – of course you need to have a copy of that. I always print my stuff so I’ve never really run into any hassles. iPhone battery life can be a killer – mine runs down quite a bit on flights as I’m taking pictures for my reviews. Have to watch that one! Thanks for the comment!
Trent, I agree that printing is old fashioned. However, I still print on 2 occasions – 1. family trips (where as you say we want a printout in case the computer says no) and 2. Travel in India where regulations need flyers to show they have a ticket before entering the terminal. Regards Gautam @ GrabAsia
Oh, I wasn’t aware a paper ticket was a requirement for entering the terminal in India. That is a very good piece of information to be aware of. Thanks for that!
I still print my itinerary as a backup in case there is some e-glitch, and my reservation either is not there or not what I expect. Also flying with South African Airlines a couple yrs ago gave me good enough reason to carry paper copies.
Even though our biz class award seats were confirmed for months, ahead of our flight, when we arrived at the airport they said we were on standby, and had no seats. They then proceeded to play musical chairs with us all leading up to the flight, to where my gf and I were no longer sitting together. Luckily we found a nice lady willing to switch seats with us, and we ended up sitting together. At that time I had not printed out my seating assignment, but ever since, I make sure I do that. Also any other trips to South Africa, I will prioritize other airlines over SAA.
It’s interesting you say that as it looks like you’re not alone when it comes to continuing to have everything on paper.
Your SAA story sounds pretty bleak. It sounds like the most stressful beginning to a trip possible – fancy saying you’re on standby when you had confirmed award tickets. That’s a bit of a joke isn’t it? It’s lucky someone was happy to switch. I have never really heard much good about South African Airways. Thanks very much for the comment!
I print out everything. I dont always look at them but knowing it is all there if I need to is reassuring. It also helps me feel more organized.
I agree with you on that, I like having them in my bag with me just in case I need them. Thanks for the comment!
When I was an Administrative Assistant, I always printed itineraries, hotel confirmations/ boarding passes and etc. for my Managing Director. It serves not only as a backup for him when he is unable to get into his emails but also for quick notes. When he returned from his business trips, I just scanned his notes into his file. Is it more work and did we waste paper? Yes, but in the end, doing so made it very easy to go back to retrieve his notes and prior itineraries without looking for them through his emails.
I hear you on that, having been in similar roles in the past. I guess when you consider the benefit versus the cost it makes sense to stick with paper. A friend of mine is a check-in agent and she said she recommends everyone prints everything out as some airlines systems are so archaic that they need some of the more obscure information on the print outs to find bookings. That was news to me, so I guess I should keep printing. Thanks for the comment!
I print everything as well. Stuff happens a lot with electronics/communications and you cant risk it. Just looked this morning and an entire week from a long trip vanished from Tripit. Also, I find it infuriating when there are itinerary changes and the exact changes aren’t highlighted and require you to dig thru email to figure it out. It’s bad enough on a desktop but all but impossible on a phone. So much quicker to have paper backup. My paper is high-recycle-content paper…
I completely agree with you on that – nothing much can go wrong with a paper copy unless you lose it. I have the My Flights app on my phone which notifies you very quickly if there is any change to any flight booking you have which is handy for me. Otherwise I also keep a copy of everything in an Excel on my laptop just out of habit so I can see at a glance what I have booked and planned going forward. Paper is still king, it seems! Thanks very much for the comment!