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Paper airline tickets to be assigned to history by June
Electronic booking system will save money as well as thousands of trees
 As paper tickets go electronic next week in line with an IATA ruling, the airline industry will make an estimated profit of 3 billion dollars.A. KASSIMI
Airline tickets made of paper are set to become collector’s items in June when all tickets will become electronic, in line with a decision of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). As of June 1, the changeover to e-ticketing will save an estimated 3 billion dollars the airline industry, and the felling of 50,000 trees a year for the planet. In the Greek market, Olympic Airlines started putting in e-ticketing system in the summer of 2007, while Aegean Airlines has been selling e-tickets exclusively for the past year. The last order to print 16.5 million paper tickets was placed in July 2007 to meet the needs of some 60,000 authorized travel agents in 162 countries around the world until the deadline on May 31. IATA, which represents 240 airlines, handling 94 percent of international air traffic, issues around 400 million paper tickets a year.
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Exclusively available inside The International Herald Tribune in Greece and Cyprus
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