Airlines Solving Some of Passengers' Biggest Headaches

Summary

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WSJ Your Money Briefing

Episode: Airlines Solving Some of Passengers' Biggest Headaches
Date: August 30, 2019
Host: J.R. Whalen
Guest: Scott McCartney, Wall Street Journal "Middle Seat" Columnist

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on how major global airline alliances—like OneWorld, SkyTeam, and Star Alliance—are finally solving long-standing passenger frustrations with technology, coordination, and seamless service. WSJ's Scott McCartney explains what these moves mean for travelers, highlighting specific improvements, ongoing challenges, and the technical obstacles that have hindered progress.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Persistent Problems with Airline Alliances

[03:00]

• Despite 20 years of alliances, airlines have failed to iron out basic passenger conveniences—like uniform boarding passes or honoring frequent flyer miles across carriers.
• Simple logistics like checking in, seat selection, and receiving updates are often complicated when flying with alliance partners.
• Notably, these inconveniences persist despite close operational partnerships (like cost sharing and code-sharing agreements).

Quote:

"One of the Alliance CEOs said some of these things, they’re like going into a restaurant and expecting to find a knife and the fork on the table. You really couldn’t believe it if it’s not there."
— Scott McCartney [03:03]

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The Five Passenger "Pain Points"

[03:49] — [05:15]
SkyTeam (and other alliances) are targeting five main areas of passenger frustration:

• Boarding Passes: The basic ability to issue and recognize boarding passes seamlessly across partners.
• Seats: Ability to select or purchase specific seats (including extra legroom) on partner airlines.
• Baggage Tracking: Allowing passengers to follow their checked bags across multiple carriers, not just the first leg.
• Rebooking After Cancellations: Enabling smoother rebooking, even when flights with a partner airline are canceled.
• Frequent Flyer Status Recognition: Ensuring elite benefits—like free checked bags or early boarding—are honored throughout a journey, not just on a home airline.

Notable Detail:

• Progress report: Alliances hope to be "about halfway there" by the end of the current year, with more improvements planned into the next year.

Quote:

"They have five pain points that they've identified. And... all three of the alliances are doing similar projects right now."
— Scott McCartney [03:50]

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App Improvements and the Push for Seamless Digital Access

[05:15] — [06:18]

• United Airlines now lets customers use its app to book and select seats on partner flights like Singapore Airlines and Air Canada.
• The goal: allow passengers to handle all aspects of their trip—even on alliance partners—within one app.
• Many frequent flyers currently manage up to 20 different apps just for airline travel, including 12 for Star Alliance partners alone.
• The vision is for a single app (like United’s) to fully handle bookings, seat assignments, and trip management for all 26 Star Alliance partners.

Quote:

"What he's realized is things go better when you use the app for... whatever airline you happen to be flying. But the goal here is you ought to just be able to use one app..."
— Scott McCartney [05:49]

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Streamlining Rebooking During Disruptions

[06:18] — [07:00]

• Airlines are developing systems so passengers will automatically receive new boarding passes on their phones if a connecting flight is delayed or canceled.
• Currently, travelers often have to stand in long lines to get rebooked after disruptions, especially on partner airlines in other countries.

Quote:

"If you could land and power up your phone and there’s your new boarding pass, that would make things a whole lot easier. As it is today, you gotta go stand in line to get that done."
— Scott McCartney [06:36]

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Why It's Taken This Long: Technical and Investment Challenges

[07:00] — [08:12]

• Airlines historically prioritized spending elsewhere (fuel costs, new aircraft) over IT upgrades for passenger convenience.
• Old, incompatible reservation and passenger service systems have been a major technical obstacle.
• Alliances are now building centralized "switchboards"—platforms that connect each member airline once and allow information to be shared seamlessly across all partners via digital "translators."

Quote:

"What you have at airlines are a lot of systems that are really old... different reservation systems, different passenger service systems. And those computers have a hard time talking to computers of their partners."
— Scott McCartney [07:28]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "It’s like going into a restaurant and expecting to find a knife and fork on the table."
  — Scott McCartney, on how basic airline conveniences are still missing. [03:03]

• "...things go better when you use the app for... whatever airline you happen to be flying. But the goal here is you ought to just be able to use one app..."
  — Scott McCartney, discussing digital fragmentation and the promise of unified platforms. [05:49]

• "If you could land and power up your phone and there’s your new boarding pass, that would make things a whole lot easier."
  — Scott McCartney, on stress-reducing rebooking innovations. [06:36]

• "What you have at airlines are a lot of systems that are really old... different reservation systems, different passenger service systems. And those computers have a hard time talking to computers of their partners."
  — Scott McCartney, on the technical hurdles faced by the industry. [07:28]

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• [03:00] — Ongoing, basic passenger headaches in airline alliances.
• [03:49] — The five major passenger pain points being addressed.
• [05:15] — United’s app allows seat selection on partner airlines.
• [06:18] — Automatic new boarding passes for disrupted itineraries.
• [07:00] — Why it’s taken so long: technical and investment issues.
• [08:12] — Promise of new “central switchboard” systems to fix issues.

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Summary

This episode offers a timely update for airline travelers frustrated by fragmented service and digital headaches when flying across alliance partners. Major alliances are finally investing in technology to deliver the seamless, customer-friendly experience that should have existed for years, from unified mobile apps to better baggage tracking and elite benefit recognition. With ongoing IT upgrades, the vision of managing your whole trip—no matter the airline—through a single interface is beginning to become reality.

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Transcript

[Charles Schwab Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Charles Schwab. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. Washington Wise from Charles Schwab is an original podcast that unpacks the stories making news in Washington. [e-mail] Washingtonwise.

[J.R. Whalen]

Here's your money briefing. I'm J.R. whelan at the Wall Street Journal in New York. You'd think that when airlines merge and group themselves in alliances like One World or SkyTeam, the they'd iron out all the kinks that messed up the boarding pass process or honoring frequent flyer miles. Well, they haven't until now. We'll have more in a moment. First, some money and market news you should know for the first time since at least 2011, American workers under age 35 report being happier with their paychecks than people over 55. A new report from the Conference Board shows that overall, the share of workers satisfied with their paychecks rose to 46.4% in 2018. That's up from 43% in 2017, the biggest leap coming from millennials born between 1981 and 1996 and Generation Z born after 1997. Their enthusiasm for their compensation shot up from 36% in 2017 to about 46% last year. Now, young workers may be reporting greater happiness with their pay because people tend to change jobs more in the early years of their career, and switching to a new position or employer often comes with a ra. And with the demand for labor in the current tight job market prompting many companies to lower workers with higher salaries, younger people are reaping the benefits, and maybe investing in the monthly membership in an online dating app is worth it. A study from the University of Chicago has found that more than a third of US marriages between 2005 and 2012 started online that online couples have longer, happier marriages. They studied 19,000 participants and found that what researchers termed as the relationship quality of partners who meet online may be higher and the rate of separation or divorce lower than for partners who meet offline. In addition, the research revealed that more anonymous online interaction produced greater self disclosure and stronger feelings of affection than face to face communications. And that could be steps toward more solid relationships. Many times when airlines merge or get together in a alliances like now, Star alliance or One World or SkyTeam, some details that could make things easier for passengers fall through the cracks. But now many airlines are plugging up those holes, and Wall Street Journal Middle seat columnist Scott McCartney joins us on the line with some details. So Scott, as you point out in your story, these Alliances have been around for about 20 years, but challenges still exist that get in the way of just simply like issuing a boarding pass.

[Scott McCartney]

Yeah, it's really pretty remarkable. One of the Alliance CEOs said some of these things, they're like going into a restaurant and expecting to find a knife and the fork on the table. You really couldn't believe it if it's not there. And with airline alliances, really simple things. Check in boarding passes, updates on flights, they just have really struggled to be able to give you information or sell you a seat or give you a seat assignment on a partner airline, even though they're doing so much together on the cost side.

[J.R. Whalen]

And SkyTeam for one, is addressing what you call pain points for passengers. And there are especially some frustrating areas that they're trying to address.

[Scott McCartney]

Yeah, they have five pain points that they've identified. And really all three of the alliances are doing similar projects right now. But the SkyTeam pain points are boarding passes. That's number one, seats. Number two, it would be seat selection or even the ability to sell you extra legroom. Seat across partners. That's number two. Tracking check baggage. That's something that more and more airlines are doing themselves, but they can't get give you the information once they hand off the bag to a partner. Rebooking passengers when flights are canceled, sometimes you have to go back to the original airline where you bought the ticket. You may buy a ticket on United, but you're in China and the flight gets canceled and Air China may say you got to go back to United to get rebooked. It can be really difficult. And then the last one is recognizing frequent flow flyer status all along the journey. And they are getting better at this. But, you know, there's still some frustration. Generally your status gets recognized for early boarding and things like that, but sometimes not for simple bag fee waivers. You check in a bag and one airline in the alliance wants to collect a fee from you, but you're exempt at your home airline. And so those are the five. They think they'll be about halfway there by the end of this year and then on into next year with the rest of it.

[J.R. Whalen]

And in the case of United, part of I like this idea that passengers can use its app to book seats on Singapore or Air Canada flights. And you say that more changes are coming to United's app?

[Scott McCartney]

Yeah, the goal is that you would be able to get seat assignments through United's App on all 26 partners. They've got it going with Singapore and Air Canada so far, but not with other airlines. And that'll be coming. I talked to one guy. There are so many frustrations with this. He has the apps for 20 different airlines on his phone, 12 of them star alliance partners. And you know what he's realized is things go better when you use the app for the air, for whatever airline you happen to be flying. But the goal here is you ought to just be able to use one app and you book the ticket through United. You're flying on Lufthansa or on whoever, and you ought to be able to do all the things on the United app with the other airlines that you can do with your native airline.

[J.R. Whalen]

Yeah. If you can cut down from 20 apps on your phone just for one type of business, then that's a good thing. And I like the idea you mentioned in your column. A new boarding pass being fed to a passenger's phone if a connecting flight is delayed or cancelled. That would take a lot of stress out of that scenario.

[Scott McCartney]

Yeah, it would. Just the rebooking process. You're on your way across the Atlantic. The airline in Europe, Europe cancels your flight, you get rebooked onto another flight. But getting that information is really tricky. If you could land and power up your phone and there's your new boarding pass, that would make things a whole lot easier. As it is today, you gotta go stand in line to get that done.

[J.R. Whalen]

But the fact that airlines are taking these steps now stems from the fact that it took them so long to invest in the appropriate technology.

[Scott McCartney]

Yeah, I think investment is a lot of it. The airline alliances will tell you the member airlines had other priorities. They spent their money on other places. In some cases, you know, the One World airlines decided that instead of spending on marketing for oneworld, they would put that money toward technology development. Now, some of this is technology has come along that makes this easier. But what you have at airlines are a lot of systems that are really old and they have. They're on different reservation systems, different passenger service systems. And those computers have a hard time talking to computers of their partners. So what the alliances are doing is creating sort of a central switchboard, if you will. And all the airline has to do is link up with the alliance computer and then there's translators that will allow them to share information across the alliance without having to connect each system individually with all 26 partners. In the case of the Star Alliance.

[J.R. Whalen]

All right, well, that's very good news for the flying public out there. And that is Wall Street Journal middle seat columnist Scott McCartney on the line with us. Scott, thanks for coming on the show.

[Scott McCartney]

Sure. Great to be with you, Jer.

[J.R. Whalen]

And that's your money briefing. I'm JR Whalen in New York for the Wall Street Journal.

[Charles Schwab Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Charles Schwab. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching? Washington Wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. [e-mail] WashingtonWise.