Oh god yes, this would be nice... my ticket ends up beaten all to hell by the time I finally get through security, mostly because I've got nowhere to put it but

Oh god yes, this would be nice... my ticket ends up beaten all to hell by the time I finally get through security, mostly because I've got nowhere to put it but in my pocket. But more than ticket designs, airlines really need to streamline their operations. I just arrived back in California from Tokyo today, and about four hours of my travel time was spent negotiating with the airline, because they didn't believe that I actually had a ticket. Even though I bought the ticket by actually calling United and booking it, because I had some credit from a previous canceled trip. They had a reservation in their system for the correct flight, but no actual ticket, and this was apparently confusing enough to everybody involved that I was able to actually fly from NRT to SMF via SFO without having what amounted to an actual plane ticket. The above four hours doesn't include the two phone calls that it initially required to book the ticket; apparently, they've got a big problem with their outsourced call centers not actually issuing tickets to passengers. Or the fact that my return flight to Japan had the wrong date. Let's not also forget that every ticket change incurs a fee of $250, no matter what the cause, and that they've pulled all the in-seat entertainment systems, and offer no power ports in Economy. Nothing says 'take your money elsewhere' like a system that's inflexible, impossible to navigate, filled with opportunities for human error, and expensive.