E-Tickets have benefits and drawbacks. On the up side, it's difficult to lose, since you can always just print another copy of your reservation confirmation. Even if you lose that on the way to the airport, you still have options, such as asking the ticket desk to print of a copy, or even popping into the Internet cafe to run off a copy from your web based email. It's even been reported that one customer showed their confirmation to check-in from their mobile phone. However, the primary reason for the introduction of E-Tickets was to save money. The cost to the airlines of processing a paper ticket has been estimated at about £2. That compares with about 15p for an E-Ticket, so it's in the interest of the airline to give you an E-Ticket wherever possible. The biggest drawback of an E-Ticket is if you need to transfer to another flight on another carrier.

Let's say the flight your on is delayed or cancelled, and you're facing a long wait until the airline can get you on their next flight. In Europe and the US, there are all sorts of passenger rights which may allow you to opt to continue to your destination on another airline (In the US this is called 'Rule 240'). However, to do this you need to have a paper ticket to use with that other carrier. If you only have an E-Ticket, getting a paper ticket issued and getting the original airline to transfer you can suddenly become the most difficult thing in the world. And, assuming you're in the same boat as the other 300 passengers on the delayed flight, the ticket desk is likely to be very busy.

If you can get a paper ticker without a heafty sucharge, I would recommend taking the paper ticket - they just give you more options if things go wrong. Note that the above is generic to the airline industry, and not specific to Virgin.