On Tuesday, Delta began displaying ads, coupons and other information on boarding passes for flights to Las Vegas, and on Thursday, the carrier will roll out boarding-pass ads for all other domestic destinations, said Marc Ferguson, Delta's general manager of global partnerships.

The ads will show up only on paper passes for travelers who check in at www.delta.com from a home computer. Customers who don't want ads can print passes without them, he said.

"You'll still see the normal boarding pass in the same [8 1/2 -by-11-inch] format. But we've devoted the rest of the real estate to offers, destination-specific information and other information," Ferguson said.

With 25 percent of its passengers checking in online, Delta hopes the passes will be another source of revenue for the airline, which has been raising fares, parking planes and adding fees to cope with jet fuel prices that are double what they were last year.

Delta is the first of six big airlines that will begin placing ads sold by Sojern Inc., an Omaha-based startup. Each airline - Delta, Continental, Northwest, United, US Airways and American - owns a small share of Sojern and will split revenues from the ads.

Ferguson said Sojern has worked to make sure the ads don't annoy passengers. Ads load quickly on home computers and passengers have the option to skip the offers, a factor that makes the program more palatable, said Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition.

"Until I read that the consumer can opt out of it, I was concerned that travelers were being imposed upon. Anything these carriers can do to increase revenues is what we need for them to be doing if they are going to survive," Mitchell said.

David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said boarding-pass ads are another intrusion, but he doesn't think passengers will mind.

"Once we got to having ads in movie theaters before the movies, I guess any space is open to advertising," Stempler said.

Passengers checking in at Delta's web site will enter their name and confirmation number. A mouse click then will permit them to change their itinerary or proceed to final check-in. A few more clicks displays a boarding pass, as well as weather summaries for each day at the passenger's destination.

The boarding pass screen also displays links to tourist sites, ads for tickets to sports events and reservation instructions for tee times at local golf courses. Information about the destination city, such as restaurants, shopping and movie theaters is also available.

Passengers will get "relevant and meaningful content at a critical point in their travel," Ferguson said.

pbeebe@sltrib.com