Chinese travelers will have more access to electronic air tickets as five new domestic carriers cooperated with Galileo International for e-ticket services.

They are the China Eastern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Shanghai Airlines and Xiamen Airlines.

Galileo is also the first global travel technology solutions provider to provide e-ticketing service for the latter two airlines.

Galileo global distribution system has generated over 27 million e-tickets accounting for almost three out of every four tickets issued. This has saved over 14 acres of forest per month.

Domestic airlines' enthusiasm with e-ticketing came after the China Air Transport Association (CATA) stopped providing paper flight tickets in October 2006 as a response to the call of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to popularize electronic air tickets in China.
 
Southern Airlines have joined hands earlier this year with the China Postal Group and Tencent, a company well known for its online chat tool QQ boasting 590 million registered users in China, to boost the sale of electronic air tickets.

IATA launched its drive for "e-ticketing" more than three years ago and now 84 percent of travelers on IATA carriers fly without paper tickets. To encourage cost efficiency and protect environment, the agency placed its last order in August to dump paper tickets once for all from June 1 next year.

It said that China, the host of 2008 Olympic Games and a rapid expanding air travel market of the world, is likely to become the first country to completely operate on paper-free ticketing system by the end of this year.

(Xinhua News Agency October 1, 2007)