American Airlines Becomes World's First Carrier to Offer Interline e-Ticketing With All Its Global Alliance Partners
June 08 2004 - 11:33AM
PR Newswire (US)
American Airlines Becomes World's First Carrier to Offer Interline
e-Ticketing With All Its Global Alliance Partners FORT WORTH,
Texas, June 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- American Airlines will
become the first airline in the world to offer interline electronic
ticketing with all its global alliance partners when it completes
the roll out of the service with Aer Lingus and Iberia in the
coming days, keeping oneworld firmly on track to becoming the first
airline grouping offering this customer convenience between all its
members. Interline e-ticketing -- which enables passengers to use a
single electronic ticket when their itineraries include flights on
more than one airline -- is now in place between ten of the 28
potential pairings of oneworld partners, with another seven pairs
on schedule to offer the service during the next couple of months.
By then, interline e-ticketing will be in place to cover more than
90 per cent of passengers connecting worldwide between oneworld
member airlines. The rest of the alliance's network, extending to
more than 573 destinations in 135 countries, will offer the service
by the end of this year. American Airlines set oneworld's interline
e-ticketing progamme running with partner Finnair in May 2002,
becoming the world's first airlines based on separate continents to
introduce this service. American connected up with LanChile last
July, with Cathay Pacific and Qantas in November and British
Airways in April. British Airways expects to be the second oneworld
member to offer interline e-ticketing with all other oneworld
members -- making it also the second airline in the world to
provide this convenience with all its global alliance partners.
Besides its American Airlines link, it has been offering the
service with Qantas since April and in the past few days has
launched it too with Finnair. It aims to extend it to Aer Lingus
later this month, with the other four oneworld partners linked up
by the end of August. e-tickets offer consumers many advantages.
They cannot be lost or stolen. They make check-in quicker and
smoother, helping eliminate queues at airports by giving customers
access to the speed and convenience of new automation features,
such as self-service check-in devices. Passengers with e-tickets
have the ability to rebook between airlines with interline e-ticket
agreements without having to obtain a paper ticket first.
Previously, they were required to convert their e-ticket into a
paper ticket before transferring between carriers. Interline
e-ticketing eliminates the need for paper tickets, enabling faster,
easier connections between carriers. Customers with electronic
tickets traveling on a journey involving a transfer between two
airlines can be checked right through to their final destination,
without the need for traditional paper tickets, eliminating queues
and making connections smoother and more reliable. Besides enabling
them to respond to this consumer preference, e-tickets and
interline e-ticketing also provide millions of dollars a year in
savings for the airlines, by eliminating costly paper tickets and
processes. Announcing the landmark during a oneworld summit meeting
in Singapore, American Airlines' Senior Vice-President Planning
Henry Joyner said: "American Airlines' customers can now enjoy the
convenience that interline electronic ticketing offers with all our
oneworld partners -- a first for any global alliance. By the
year-end, when all oneworld partner airlines have fully implemented
interline e-ticketing with one another, customers traveling on all
oneworld itineraries will enjoy even smoother connections among all
the alliance member carriers." Beyond its oneworld partners,
American now offers interline e-ticketing convenience with 15
carriers, including most of the larger US airlines -- Alaska,
America West, ATA, Aloha, Continental, Delta, Hawaiian, Midwest,
Northwest, United and US Airways. American also has interline
e-ticketing agreements with KLM and Copa Airlines. oneworld is the
world's leading quality airline alliance. Its eight airlines and
their affiliates carried more than 220 million passengers last year
on a combined fleet of almost 2,000 aircraft, earning revenues of
some US$50 billion. Members of any oneworld airline's frequent
flyer programme can earn awards and points on eligible fares and
redeem them throughout the alliance's network. oneworld was
recently named the World's Leading Airline Alliance in the World
Travel Awards, based on votes cast by 80,000 travel agencies
professionals from more than 200 countries. DATASOURCE: American
Airlines CONTACT: Michael Blunt, PR of oneworld, +44-20-8738-5173,
or +44-7789-612712, or ; or Media Relations of Aer Lingus,
+353-1-886-2573; or Corporate Communications of American Airlines,
+1-817-967-1577, or ; or Press Office of British Airways,
+44-20-8738-5100; or Corporate Communications of Cathay Pacific,
+852-2747-8282; or Corporate Communications of Finnair,
+358-981-84970; or Communications of Iberia, +34-91-587-7462, or ;
or Communications of LanChile, +562-565-3975; or Corporate
Communication of Qantas, +61-2-9691-3013 Web site:
http://www.amrcorp.com/ http://www.oneworld.com/pressroom
http://www.aerlingus.com/ http://www.britishairways.com/press
http://www.cathaypacific.com/ http://www.finnair.com/
http://www.iberia.com/ http://www.lan.com/
http://www.qantas.com.au/
Copyright