IATA and Star Alliance vow to cooperate to improve passenger experience

IATA and Star Alliance have renewed their collaboration on traveller document verification to improve the passenger experience.

Star Alliance and IATA, in a signing ceremony at IATA’s 75th Annual General Meeting in Seoul, agreed that IATA’s Timatic AutoCheck solution will continue to power automated document check (ADC) for Star Alliance member carriers.

IATA Timatic AutoCheck enables Star Alliance customers checking-in to verify that their travel documents are valid and complete for the whole journey, including any transit point before travel begins. This delivers several significant benefits:

• Preventing the embarrassing and distressing situation when passengers are denied entry to a country on arrival owing to missing or invalid documents
• Enabling a seamless experience when travel encompasses multiple carriers: Passengers will no longer need to see an agent to have their travel documents checked and rechecked at transit points
• Avoiding the passenger fine to airlines for transporting inadmissible passengers.

Jeffrey Goh, CEO Star Alliance, said: “This marks another milestone in our continuing strategy to improve the passenger travel experience, especially for those customers who fly on multi-carrier journeys. Our partnership with IATA to extend collaboration on passenger document verification through use of IATA’s Timatic AutoCheck to support our proven solution of the ADC will help ensure a seamless travel experience for our members’ 775 million passengers, a priority that lies at the heart of our strategic repositioning.”

“Digital transformation is essential to meeting evolving passenger expectations today and into the future. Star’s selection of Timatic will give its customers a better experience,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO.