Have you ever experienced arriving at the airport for a much-awaited trip abroad, only to panic at the last minute because you totally forgot to print out your plane ticket? If this has happened to you, there’s no more need to worry about a repeat occurrence as a soft copy of your ticket would now be enough to get you through the gates.

The Department of Justice and its office, the Bureau of Immigration, would no longer be requiring airplane passengers to show a printout of their tickets at airports. Instead, travelers can now present their electronic tickets through their mobile devices, like smartphones or tablets.

This new policy is stipulated in Operations Order No, SBM-2013-003, entitled “Removing the Requirement of Presentation of the Printed Hard Copy of Return and/or Onward Passage Ticket."

“This is another simple step to imprve access to basic government services,” Justice Secretary Leila De Lima said about the new ordinance. “We shall continue to work with all stakeholders to inject common sense and process logic into our systems.”

(Photo by Whatatravisty via Flickr Creative Commons)