Winston Aldworth: On plane tickets

There are many little things about flying that bug me. Today, it's the size of airline boarding passes that's got my goat.

Boarding passes should be designed to fit inside your passport, neatly and without being folded. Passports from around the world are uniform in size. How did we miss the opportunity to make boarding passes that match them?

When a boarding pass sticks out, it can easily get dog-eared or damaged. Most people leave the perforated flap sticking out and fold it back over the passport book. This means the perforated flap is in danger of tearing and you could lose your valuable ticket stub.

Not a problem, you think? After all, you still have your passport, so you can just show them that and they'll let you on the plane, right? Well, if boarding passes aren't important, why give them to us?

Don't expect the size of boarding passes to change: they're pretty much uniform around the world and the investment in scanning and processing technology is vast. Thankfully, with the advent of digital boarding passes on your mobile device, they're also nearly outdated.

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