Oneworld Airline Tech Means Your Favorite App Controls Journey

Have my tech talk to your tech, cool?

Check in online or in the airline app of your choice once, drop any bags once and you’re done. Each year, 8 million passengers, enough to fill Barcelona’s Camp Nou Stadium 80 times connect between different airlines within the Oneworld alliance alone. Basically, people may start on one airline, but many journeys require transferring over to another airline – and unfortunately that’s traditionally meant some level of added hassle for passengers.

Today, Oneworld became the first alliance to announce one seamless, universal passenger connectivity experience, which will roll out throughout the year 2019. The first big thing to note: you’ll be able to pick your favorite airlines app, say… Qatar Airways and use that app for basically everything, even reservations with other airlines…

Some features are live now. When it’s done, it may bring the end of hassles such as visiting multiple websites, not being able to select seats or pay for any baggage online or download an app from another airline just to track your luggage. The new service allows…

• Baggage tracking, even when bags transfer from one airline to another. 
• Downloading mobile boarding passes from other airlines.
• Ability to select seats on other airlines, even when payment is needed.
• Directions to any lounges, help desks or other airline facilities.

Cathay Pacific and Qatar Airways are the first two Oneworld airlines to connect to this exciting new information sharing service, which officially launched December 18th, 2018. The alliance is set to introduce this platform of passenger friendly features to all Oneworld airlines over the course of the year, with additional features rolling out one by one.

Here’s how it works: The idea behind this technology is that you can use whichever Oneworld airline app, website or point of initial contact you prefer, and it will be all you need for the rest of your journey on any Oneworld airline, including tracking bags! Love the Qantas app, go for it for your British Airways reservation. Love the Cathay app, use it for your future American Airlines reservation…

When you transfer from one airline to another, you traditionally have to go from one website to another to check in, or if you are able to check in the whole way, you’d still need to visit the other airline website to select and pay for seats and any extra bags. This “carrrierconnect” service is the end of that.  

If you’re a Cathay Pacific fan and love their app, you’ll also be able to check in for Qatar Airways flights, and eventually all Oneworld airlines flights, including seat selection and payment for any bags you need for your entire journey. Yep, from that singular first point of contact. One app, one session, done. Tech that talks to tech is good tech.

This will presumably help naturally push airlines to keep their apps current, responsive and competitive, which is always nice too. The new system known as “carrierconnect” allows airlines to share data with the aim of alleviating these choke points travelers currently experience across all airlines and alliances, and with any hope, you’ll be able to breeze past all the desks at the airport.