A traveler's worst nightmare used to be losing a paper ticket. Whether for a bus, train or airplane, losing the tickets was a major inconvenience. As technology has advanced, and more and more travelers are booking their own flights online, the e-ticket has become the ticket of choice with airlines.

An e-ticket is an electronic airline ticket, or electronic reservation. A traveler with an e-ticket is not issued a traditional paper ticket. Instead, he prints out his reservation information, and often his boarding pass, from e-mail before heading to the airport. The reservation is in the airline's computer system.

The e-ticket saves airlines money because they do not have to spend money and postage issuing paper tickets. The e-ticket is also more reliable, since the traveler need not depend on the mail to receive his ticket, or on a ticketing clerk at the airport, who may not know a ticket was to be held for the traveler at the counter.

An e-ticket is also cheaper than a paper ticket. U.S. airlines routinely charge about $20 US Dollars (USD) to issue a paper ticket. This helps offset printing and postage charges. Older travelers would often rather have a paper ticket, and will pay the extra fee, but most travelers prefer the convenience of the e-ticket.

Using the e-ticket generally consists of having the reservation information printed and ready for inspection. If online check-in is available, a traveler is always advised to take advantage of this procedure. If this is not feasible, travelers may be able check in at the electronic kiosk for their airline at the airport, or they can always check in at the ticket counter itself. When checking in at the ticket counter, the traveler will show the e-ticket reservation information to the agent and have the boarding passes printed out there.

Although all major U.S. airlines and most major world airlines use the e-ticket, not all airlines do. It is always advisable to check and see if an e-ticket will be accepted at the ticket counter. This is especially true for travelers flying on a major airline's codeshare partner. The main airline will probably honor an e-ticket, but the codeshare partner may or may not.

An e-ticket can be purchased directly from an airline's website, from a travel site or from a travel agent. However, reservation information should always be printed out and available, since computers can crash and the traveler may need to show the information to a security agent. With an e-ticket, a traveler can feel a bit more secure about the status of his flight.