Grotty boarding passes

[Asturias56]

I thought I'd seen some tawdry boarding passes but took a LATAM flight into Sao Paolo and was issued with a boarding pass that looked like it had been printed on a Sinclair ZX80... that flimsy v thin paper.... .....flight was great but the pass was a crumpled mess before I 'd even reached the door . The problem is your baggage tags are attached to this ragged slip of rubbish...

[Load Toad]

Tis increasingly the norm....I miss the old style printed airline tickets myself & when I was on a long trip having several stapled together...when you'd list the cities you were visiting by just the airport code...

[Asturias56]

Yes another cost cutting step I guess........ presumably they'll find a way to staple the luggage tags to my I-phone eventually........

[mgahan]

Same problems on my recent trip with the additional one of fading so bad in the few days after the LATAM trips on my trip back to home base that the boarding passes were unreadable when I needed them to attach to the travel claim. Photocopy ASAP if you need them as evidence later. Luckily I was travelling with the Minister and Permanent Secretary and they could vouch for the accuracy of the travel dates.

MJG

[PAXboy]

I keep emailed copies as PDFs and usually have these on my lap top or a USB drive as I travel.

When starting a journey from home, I print my pass onto thin card. For my work, I have purchased A4 sheets that are devided into three Landscape sections with micro perforations. Once you've sorted and saved the margins and page settings, you can print the 'active' part onto a piece of card that is just about the same size as the old ATB card - minus the mag stripe! This means I can leave behind the useless advertising that the (I presume) the car hire company has paid the LCC for. If it's a short trip, I can print out and back cards at the same time.

Check in and Gate Agents raise an appreciative eyebrow at the card but it always works and you can stick the bag tags on the back.

[mgahan]

Paxboy,
You have obviously not had the "pleasure" of checking in for a LATAM flight. After check in, particularly at Sau Paulo, the "experience" improves logarithmicaly.

MJG

[RevMan2]

True story. The marketing people at a client airline (based in a stately home in the Midlands) got hold of the boarding passes in a fit of Corporate Identity-itis and redesigned them with swooshy backgrounds of dark blue and dark grey on high gloss card.
Not ideal for visibility of whatever gets printed on there - useful stuff, like pax name, flight number, seat..- and using high gloss card resulted in smudged ink bordering on illegibility for whatever *wasn’t* black on dark blue.
The board review meeting where the CFO asked the COO how many had been ordered (6 million) was a treat...

[PAXfips]

Most grotty: Eurowings CI in MAN (no pic, but substandard thermo..). Most "cute": UNI Air https://abload.de/img/dsc01127xrot2.png

[Kiltrash]

The way modern people have their boarding QR codes on their I things and the way you need finger prints to access good ol USA .....how long till they combine both.....make booking and upload finger prints also stored on passports that one press with a clean right ( or left ) Index finger and you arr good to go and sweep through security boarding and border controls

[RevMan2]

Some bugger ahead of me the other day in Frankfurt thought he was at immigration at JFK and couldn’t work out why the boarding gate wouldn’t open for him. Tried thumb. Tried 4 fingers. Tried all 5. Halfway through the other hand, the boarding team took the boarding pass from between his teeth, scanned it and sent him on his way. Bloody hell....

[Asturias56]

Paxboy,<br />You have obviously not had the "pleasure" of checking in for a LATAM flight. After check in, particularly at Sau Paulo, the "experience" improves logarithmicaly.<br /><br />MJG<br /><br />v v true<br /><br />good airline but checkin needs work across the network

[El Bunto]

When starting a journey from home, I print my pass onto thin card.

I'm honestly not being sarcastic, but do you really like doing the airlines' work for them?

If the agent can't read my faded boarding 'pass' then it's not my problem to fix.

[PAXboy]

Nope, El Bunto. Making my life easier for a faster passage through the system!

[edi_local]

I'm honestly not being sarcastic, but do you really like doing the airlines' work for them?

If the agent can't read my faded boarding 'pass' then it's not my problem to fix.

Whose problem is it then?

If you don't have a legible boarding pass you won't be going anywhere. Sounds very much like your problem. It's no skin off a check in agents nose to reprint your boarding pass but you're the only one who will be delayed getting airside.



I dislike the airlines who seem to want to print all of your flights on one boarding pass. AF, KL and SK come to mind. I realise it must be an Amadeus/Altea feature as all 3 use that system and other airlines may well do it too, but these are the only 3 in my experience recently. QR and FI for example also use the Altea DCS platform and still issue individual, full size boarding passes for each leg.

[747 jock]

I'm honestly not being sarcastic, but do you really like doing the airlines' work for them?

If the agent can't read my faded boarding 'pass' then it's not my problem to fix.

IMO, I honestly can't see much of a difference between this soft of attitude and that of a driver who pulls in front of a 30 tonne lorry and then ends up in hospital where he tells everyone:
"If the lorry driver couldn't see me then it's not my problem as I had the right of way"

[easyflyer83]

Maybe someone could invent a portable boarding pass laminator though I suspect most people couldn’t give a flying fig if their boarding pass was crumpled before reaching the aircraft door.

[Mark in CA]

Almost every time I print my boarding pass(es) at home, the agent where I check my bag will print out a standard one (on card) the old fashioned way. So now I've just stopped printing them myself. No problems yet. Last trip on BA I had my boarding pass in the BA app, but same thing -- when I check my bag they printed the boarding passes.

[paulc]

Most boarding passes that come out of the self check-in machines are on the flimsy stuff. Dont leave in direct sunlight as it will fade quickly

[edi_local]

Most boarding passes that come out of the self check-in machines are on the flimsy stuff. Dont leave in direct sunlight as it will fade quickly

Don't accidentally spray it with perfume or aftershave in duty free either as it will turn completely black!


With regards to reprinting boarding cards at the desk, main airlines will do it as either the system automatically generates a new boarding pass when a bag is added, so they may as well give you a new one anyway, or they are doing so to ensure you get through security. In some places home printed or mobile boarding cards have a higher chance of being rejected due to misreading, so a blanket reprint is done just to avoid time wasting. If I am dropping a bag off I usually check in online and don't bother to print anything. Sometimes I will use an app to generate a digital pass and use that if I'm traveling light, but I mostly travel ID and for that you almost always end up with desk issued thick paper boarding pass.

[Davef68]

Don't accidentally spray it with perfume or aftershave in duty free either as it will turn completely black!

.

Or leave it on top of a heater or powered up laptop........

[WHBM]

Same problems on my recent trip with the additional one of fading so bad in the few days after the LATAM trips on my trip back to home base that the boarding passes were unreadable when I needed them to attach to the travel claim. Photocopy ASAP if you need them as evidence later. Luckily I was travelling with the Minister and Permanent Secretary and they could vouch for the accuracy of the travel dates.
Just in passing, but this seems to b a uniquely Australian thing, where you have to submit boarding passes with travel expense claims. Was there a problem/fraud with people not travelling and turning their tickets back in ?

[RevMan2]

Cash in your business class ticket, fly economy. Oldest trick in the book....

[edi_local]

Just in passing, but this seems to b a uniquely Australian thing, where you have to submit boarding passes with travel expense claims. Was there a problem/fraud with people not travelling and turning their tickets back in ?


To be honest when I worked for one carrier a few years ago I had to submit boarding cards when claiming expenses for Duty Travel, even though it was all booked through my Duty Travel desk and they had access to all of my PNRs and ETKTs and even when I flew with my employer! All stuff they can check by looking at the status of my ticket and as I was flying either for a training course or to see people in head office, all of which my attendance at was logged digitally, there really was no need for me to send over my boarding card scans, but still, they insisted!