On June 1 2008, 240 air carriers, members of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), stopped issuing paper tickets in favour of electronic ticketing, most of it through internet bookings.

One of the main reasons for the change was to make it more convenient for travellers. "Consumers can look forward to easier travel in an electronic world," IATA said in a statement. Electronic ticketing eliminates the risk of losing tickets because they "can easily be changed and re-issued without necessitating a trip to a travel agency or airline ticket office. And they enable a wide array of self-service options such as online and mobile check in," IATA said.

The change would affect mainly travel agents, who would not be able to issue paper tickets anymore, though airports can still do so.

Not that it matters in Bulgaria, which was caught unprepared by the switch to electronic tickets.

Before the change, Bulgarian-language business daily Pari quoted Irina Naidenova, head of the Association of Bulgarian Tour Operators and Travel Agents, who said that giving up paper tickets would make access to some destinations more difficult and expensive. Agencies would not be able to issue 15 per cent of the tickets that they now offer, because some carriers do not issue electronic tickets, Naidenova told the 97th biannual meeting of the European Travel Agents' and Tour Operators' Associations (ECTAA) in Sofia on May 27.

Clients would be forced to use alternative routes, which would make the trip more expensive. Other tour operators also said that they were not ready to meet the IATA requirement.

Interviewed by The Sofia Echo, Mark Thomas, managing director of travel management company HRG Bulgaria, said that ECTAA's concerns were valid, but added that Bulgaria was not alone in this respect. "It is a real mess right now," he said, with tour operators and travel agents facing two main problems, especially in cases of clients travelling outside the European Union.

On one hand, when the trip included multiple flights with different carriers, there was a chance that the airlines may not have a contract allowing one other the use of electronic tickets. That brings paper tickets back into the equation, although with travel agents and tour operators unable to issue such tickets, they have to send virtual tickets to carriers, who in turn would print out a paper ticket at the airport. Far from cutting down paperwork, the scenario was a distinct one travellers could encounter on long-distance routes, though unlikely in the EU, where most of the airlines have contracts between each other.

The other potential problem was that carriers had technical difficulties when it came to re-booking or making other changes to the tickets. "These are fairly basic things, which affect only a few per cent of the carriers, but there is no excuse that the system was not implemented 100 per cent," Thomas said. The electronic ticketing requirement was not something new and the carriers and their technical providers had years to prepare for the introduction of the electronic ticketing system. IATA had already postponed its implementation once, as it was initially scheduled to go into effect on January 1 2008.

But those were just teething problems, which would go away sooner or later. "The amendment will be a positive thing in a long term, definitely," Thomas said.

IATA estimates that its members would slash 1.9 billion euro off in cost savings and preserving 50 000 trees every year. Independent research, however, showed that the burden would be shifted from carriers onto customers, who would spend between two and four times more paper to print their electronic tickets than airlines did.