FORT WORTH, Texas — If you're one of the dwindling number of travelers using a paper ticket to get on an airplane, the airline industry has a message for you: The paper ticket's almost gone.

Now airlines charge about $50 for a paper ticket, but soon paper tickets will be available only in rare circumstances.

The International Air Transport Association, which met Monday in Vancouver, British Columbia, reported that 80 percent of all airline tickets bought outside the U.S. at the end of April were e-tickets.

"If you traveled here using a paper ticket, frame it and donate it to your local museum," Giovanni Bisignani, the chief executive of the IATA, told attendees.

At American Airlines, the world's largest carrier, almost 99 percent of tickets sold worldwide are electronic, said Tim Smith, a company spokesman.

The Fort Worth-based carrier won't even allow you to buy a paper ticket if you buy directly from the airline. The only way to get a paper ticket is to buy it through a travel agent and pay $50 extra, Smith said.

And the $50 actually buys you a less-secure ticket, Smith said, because losing a paper ticket can be extremely inconvenient and expensive.

"The irony is electronic tickets are not paperless," he said. "You do have a printed itinerary and a boarding pass. They are much more secure in terms of theft or abuse."