In an effort to save money and inconvenience customers, Delta has discontinued their ticket jackets, much to the dismay of seasoned air-traveler, Greg. For the uninitiated, ticket jackets are the handy-dandy miniature document organizers that allow you to neatly store tickets, boarding passes and itineraries. He was disappointed to learn that Delta had discontinued this mini-marvel of personal organizers which actually boasts a rich history in aviation. His letter, inside…
Hello -
I checked at the Delta self-service kiosk this morning for my flight from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale. I printed my boarding pass, itinerary and receipt from the kiosk and reached for the ubiquitous blue paper Delta ticket jacket, only there were none. I went to drop off my bag and asked for a ticket jacket – I like to keep my boarding pass and other documents, plus my baggage claim sticker all organized in one place. The woman checking me in informed me that Delta discontinued the use of the ticket jackets as of Monday in order to help cut costs! Wow. That is a bit extreme. That’s several pennies worth of paper that, although I’m sure some posters will belittle the concept and my desire to have the jacket, make a big difference for a frequent business traveler such as myself. Other airlines, such as Airtran, subsidize these jackets by printing advertisements inside the folder. This may sound minor, but it was a useful item to have. Not that they are eliminating all paper, now the are providing a separate sheet with ticket Terms and Conditions in the slot that used to hold ticket jackets. I have attached an image of both sides of this slip.In an additional interesting piece of this experience, I was given a complimentary Medallion upgrade to first class at the time of boarding. On Delta, the gate agent scans your boarding pass, a new boarding “coupon” is printed and handed to you and the original boarding pass is taken by the gate agent. This normally isn’t a problem, but since there is no longer a ticket jacket to stick the baggage claim sticker on, the sticker now goes on – you guessed it – the boarding pass that you get at check in! So, not that I have needed a claim tag in any of my travels, but if it is important enough for them to give it to you – it is your “receipt” after all – then it
should be important enough to keep, right?All in all, a short-sighted move on Delta’s part and it really only saves a few cents per ticket.
Thanks Consumerist
Delta, you make us sad. We loved ticket jackets for their neat design, foldy fun and secret slots. The ticket jacket always made sure that the proper document was easily accessible, yet secure and organized when we jammed the whole thing in our back pocket. We hope you realize that the paper-pennies you are pinching will be negated by fumbling passengers who will be spending a few extra seconds managing their travel documents. Multiply these few seconds by thousands of passengers and you should begin to see the error in playing God with our ticket jackets.
(Photo: Getty)
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Comment on Delta Airlines Terminates Ticket Jackets From my recollection, the ticket jacket is one of the few places the airline
formally notifies consumers of baggage loss liability requirements. So the
elimination of ticket jackets could mean more money back on lost bags, at
least in small claims court.
While it says a lot about how crappy
Delta, check in online and you won’t have this issue…
Sorry, I am not feeling the pain here. So you don’t have a piece of paper to put your piece of paper in. And?
Bring a legal size envelope to put your stuff in if it is such a big deal.
Yes, this article is a waste of internet resources…
Hello…This is the “wack job” Original Poster. Let’s clarify a few things, please. It’s not that I deeply “care” about ticket jackets, nor is it that I cannot live on without one, its just a strange place to try to cut money, especially when I get on a plane that serves me a drink in an expensive glass tumbler and offers me unlimited snacks, free headphones, etc. It’s just a strange place to cut costs.
Let’s remember that the ticket jacket is OPTIONAL. If you don’t want one, don’t take one. Easy. However, for those of us that were used to them and chose to utilize them, their elimination, and strange half-replacement, are strange choices.
Had some of y’all fine commenters bothered to read and process the original post, you’ll see that Delta has not ELMIINATED the paper that comes with your boarding pass, just changed the nature of it. There is still an OPTIONAL piece of paper that has the “Ticket Notices” on it. If they are still required (???) to have to print out and offer this information, why not put it in a format that I, the consumer, would actually want to/need to pick up and carry?
Travel can be a hectic and sometimes confusing process. I fly weekly, but I see others that have no idea how to check in, get through security, find their gate, get into a seat, deplane, find a bag, or do any other rudimentary, seemingly self-explanatory tasks. Having an OPTIONAL place to put your travel documents – for those that choose to pick it up – and having it also be the repository for necessary T’s+C’s, plus a place to keep your baggage claim sticker. This is Delta’s process, not mine – I am aware that other airlines have other processes. Delta didn’t change their process, they simply eliminated an “integral” part of their own long-standing process and failed to provide either a good replacement or even just a good, BS environmental company line (as other commenters suggested). Just tell me you’re going green. I can cop to that. No big deal. Just don’t tell me you’re simply being cheap when many other things indicate that you are not, especially in an area where the cost is so irrelevant that I, as the customer, will never see this savings. It’s a customer facing, obvious change. What is next? Will it be something that you commenters DO care about?
Is it an essentially inconsequential product and posting? Maybe. However, the item existed, it went away and there was no good reason or associated savings that translates to the consumer can be seen. Talking about such things is part of the spirit of this site. Not everything is going to apply to everyone that reads this site. Want a site that applies just to you and the things you care about? Start your own blog. I’m sure it will be a mind-bendingly good read. Let us all know when it’s online. Maybe we can comment on it…
Back to the real reason for my post – we’re too deep into this to stop and the emotional reaction to this is, well, stunning…anyway, the ticket jacket. It doesn’t need to be die-cut and 4-color process – it was more of the concept of it that was useful. If I knew where I could get a similar reusable jacket, I would get one. A potentially USEFUL comment would be for someone to post a site where we can all get these jackets. Sounds like a great “green” idea.
As for the others who use the well thought out line along the lines of “Since the OP has solved all other problems in the world, he can complain about this!” Well, maybe I haven’t solved all the other problems in the world, but if commenting on the interesting things that companies do to their customers is an indication of that, then fine. I’ve solved my problems and am using this site for its intended purpose. I would also have to think that people who have time to read and then take the time to COMMENT on “useless” stories such as this one have also “eliminated all problems” from the world, right? In fact, someone in that position is better off than I am, apparently…
This is supposed to be a forum where we can all come together, comment on things that companies do and maybe solve some problems. Commenter’s reactions are sometimes, well, interesting – but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It’s an open forum. If everyone wants to be FIRST POST then great, lets all compete on that level. We’ll get really far with this whole internet thing. On the other hand, maybe we can educate each other on lots of different topics – both big and small. Different things affect different people in different ways.
Personally, I like that I can comment on not just life-altering events, but also on stupid, insignificant things like this – kind of makes the world a little bit more interesting to know that others are “affected”, each in their own strange way, by how things unfold in this world. Today, it was my turn, with silly ticket jackets. Tomorrow, it will be your turn when your shampoo bottle is .2 ounces smaller, but costs 3.2% more. Not everything has to be an earth-shaking event. Then again, maybe we should only post and comment on life-and-death issues? Of course, then we would have a lot less to comment and complain about. I guess we would then need to have a site where we could complain about how Consumerist used to be better.
Ah well, nothing’s perfect…
You can sure tell who gets out once every two years vrs. those of us who fly weekly. Its not about ticket jackets, its about what they will think of next! Delta has become the new aeroflot!
My first thought was kudos to Delta for finding a way to save some extra money and save a few trees too.
I wonder how the response would have been if someone complained that they were “forced” to get their boarding pass with a jacket and how very un-green Delta was becoming.
@DonShaw and @OP:
I agree. You can tell who are the real travelers and who are the Kettles just from the responses on here.
It’s not an earth-shaking, life-rattling thing. Life rarely is. It’s a little thing that is a convenience and something useful to have when you’re running down the hallway for your flight.
It’s about being forced to suffer through the death of a thousand cuts….and then having to listen to whiners here complain about all the oil that’s going into making those damnable reusable plastic ticket jackets because we’ve gotten rid of paper ones.
I like ticket jackets. They help me keep track of my tickets. It’s that little flash of blue/gold/red/whatever sticking out of the book in my hand that lets me know that I’ve got my boarding passes on me. I can’t stand this flimsy-ass receipt-stock they print BPs on these days. You NEED a ticket jacket to keep it from getting torn and destroyed in your pocket after you’ve stuffed it in there and ran halfway across the airport to make your flight.
Like so much in life, they are all at once, nothing yet everything.
This is to answer all of the comments about what to replace the “missing” paper ticket jackets with:
I bought a leather reusable ticket/travel holder on eBay last year that is very handy. Cost was about $8 for a pair. It holds my tickets and boarding passes, has a place for a passport, has an id card window (so you don’t have to keep taking your wallet out and risk losing it), has a pen holder, a place for coins and cash, and a long loop so it can be worn over your neck for easy access at gates and checkpoints. I find it handier than a ticket jacket because it has everything that is asked for in one place as well as places for the common extras one uses while travelling. With all of the changes in airport security having all of the required documents in one central location is a real time-saver and I find that it reduces a lot of the stress of travelling. I wish I had gotten one years ago when I was travelling monthly, mostly internationally. Similar ticket/travel holders can be found at most luggage and travel stores, Target, as well as online. They are thicker than a paper ticket jacket, but only in as much as the material they are made from.
It’s not the end of the world as we know it.