Amid the "Turmoil in Turkey" I've been stuck with the decision about whether or not to board my flight to Instanbul.
The airlines are not, of course, willing to give me a refund, since the flights are still scheduled to fly. Which brings me to a concept I have mentioned before on crypto currency forums about making tickets work like tokens on a blockchain. The concept is quite simple - instead of a printed or emailed ticket, you purchase and take possession of a digital token that represents your ticket and that token resides securely on a blockchain.
One of the main benefits of ticket tokens would be the option to trade or sell your ticket if you don't want to or can't use it.
The reality that I cannot trade or sell my airline ticket is actually ridiculous if you think about it. Why should I not have this option? The airline shouldn't care, they have the same costs no matter who actually fills my seat. Yet, here I am in the predicament of potentially walking away from several hundred dollars because I no longer want to use the ticket. And I am sure almost everyone has been in a situation where they want to cancel or change an airline ticket only to get dinged with all kinds of change fees or simply lose their money.
This idea could easily be applied to ANY type of ticket... sporting events, concerts, etc. When you arrive at the gate, you open your digital wallet and have your ticket token scanned. This concept also prevents ticket fraud and would help kickstart events since you could easily pre-sell your ticket inventory. More people would buy tickets if they knew they had the immutable option to re-sell them.
I know it would be a big stretch for Steemit to add ticket issuing functionality to this platform (perhaps Bitshares would be more suitable), however, I do believe that just as Steemit will prove that the most successful model for running a social media platform will be to use a blockchain with tokens, I have no doubt that the first airline to start issuing tradable tokens instead of regular tickets will make the old way obsolete.
One of the objections to this idea was that airlines need to have passport info about the traveler well beforehand for some unknown (probably security related) reason. This also doesn't make sense. All passports are scanned at the time of check-in and again at boarding and, presumably, some sort of security search on the passenger is done at that time.
The other objection would be the issue of getting your wallet hacked and therefore losing your ticket. This is still one of the main things holding crypto back from going mainstream in my opinion, but as wallet services improve, I think this issue will be solved eventually.
As it is, I can't stand airline policy as it relates to changing or canceling reservations. As a guy who buys multiple tickets per year and travels extensively, it's cost me a lot of money and strife whenever I want to change my plans.