Global airline alliance OneWorld, which includes American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and 11 other airlines, announced a forthcoming policy change to make it easier for travelers to book multi-leg flights. The change, announced by OneWorld CEO Nat Pieper and first reported in Bloomberg, will streamline the process of flying with multiple OneWorld carriers on a single itinerary, with the aim of making it closer to booking a multi-stop itinerary with a single airline.
Photo: Carlos Yudica/Shutterstock
A Top Airline Alliance Will Make It Easier to Fly Across Multiple Carriers
This includes a new technology platform that will allow travelers to check in and add checked bags only once for the entire journey. The goal is to make it simpler for the traveler and for the airlines when international itineraries are booked to hard-to-reach places.
“We want a multi-carrier travel experience to be the same as a connecting experience for if you’re flying on the same airline,” Piper said, as quoted by Bloomberg.
The airline hopes this improvement will reduce the stresses of long-haul international travel while simultaneously cutting costs for the airlines. No word yet on if other major alliances such as Star Alliance plan to follow suit, but if the recent spate of baggage fee increases is any indication, this move by OneWorld could cause a ripple effect throughout the industry. 