The airline industry is entering its connected travel era, but the shift has been years in the making. The model for expanding networks and offering passengers connecting flights on other airlines began decades ago with traditional codeshare and interline agreements and progressed through virtual or alternative interlining experiments (and the riskier unmanaged self-connect phase). That evolution has now matured into something more structured, reliable, and scalable.
In 2026, connected travel is emerging as a preferred model for airlines seeking to extend their networks.
How do we know? As the company that defined and pioneered the connected travel model, we have a unique perspective on the future of interlining and what airlines and travellers should expect in the years ahead.
We see a rethinking of how trips are sold and managed, alongside a reassessment of traditional interlining approaches as more modern alternatives emerge.
What Connected Travel Means (And What It Replaces)
Let’s start with a definition. Connected travel is any journey comprising two or more scheduled transportation segments (e.g., air-air, air-rail, or air-ferry) that must work together as a single, unbroken end-to-end trip. It does not include non-scheduled transport, such as rideshare, but it does include services that allow travellers to move across carriers, modes, and networks as part of the same journey.
Connected travel embraces the traveller’s perspective of a trip as a cohesive whole. According to SITA Passenger IT Insights 2025, 70% of travellers plan at least one trip combining air, rail, or road in the next 12 months, and 42% want a single digital ticket covering all modes. They want broader options, but they expect those options to work together with transparency and minimal friction. Travellers expect predictable handling when plans change, a clear understanding of who will assist them, and confidence that their trip will run smoothly from one flight to the next.
Connected travel represents a natural progression from connecting systems to connecting journeys and from airline-first processes to passenger-first experiences. It encompasses what traditional codeshare, virtual interline, and intermodal transit each address separately, but under a unified framework with operational support.
A connected travel model includes three core components.
- It provides a way to build and sell multi-carrier itineraries without the cost or long timelines associated with traditional interline or other connectivity models.
- It supports the journey through protection services, rebooking assistance, and airside baggage transfer, addressing the key issues that limited earlier virtual interline models.
- It establishes a structure in which airlines retain ownership of the customer relationship and control as much of the passenger experience as possible.
Comparing Connected Travel to Earlier Models
For decades, traditional interline and codeshare agreements were the primary way airlines approximated the benefits of connected travel. These arrangements are somewhat dependable and convenient for travellers, but they are often slow to implement, commercially questionable, operationally complex, and can be costly for airlines to maintain. Implementation timelines can stretch for months or, in some cases, years. Costs accumulate through negotiations and technical integrations. While airlines gain the ability to sell their partner carriers’ inventory, they do not control the passenger experience on those flights. Legacy technology limits which ancillaries airlines can offer passengers, a key revenue stream in the modern aviation industry.
Nevertheless, despite IATA’s assertion that the legacy interline framework “is no longer relevant,” airlines continue to pursue traditional interlining and codeshare arrangements. In fact, more airlines are projected to explore this method for network expansion in 2026 than they did last year, reflecting the enduring need for connectivity even when traditional tools are imperfect.
Virtual and alternative interlining have become technology-driven alternative tools. These models allow airlines to quickly combine flights without formal partnerships, expanding network reach and enabling carriers to reach customers on previously inaccessible routes.
Alternative interlining contributed to up to 15% of passenger boardings in 2023, per OAG. And that is not even counting self-connecting passengers, which grew from 55 million in 2016 to an estimated 179 million in 2022, according to OAG market models compiled from data from PhocusWire, Amadeus, and ICF Next.
However, just like traditional codeshare agreements, these models have limitations. Passengers are typically unprotected during disruptions; if a delay or cancellation results in a missed connection, virtual interlining doesn’t provide an agreed-upon process for rebooking or supporting them. Baggage transfer is another critical pain point, as passengers must reclaim and recheck their bags between segments. This extends connection times and significantly increases the risk of missed flights. Airlines also have limited insight into how these itineraries perform, making them difficult to manage and assess accurately.
Connected travel resolves these challenges. It combines the reach and flexibility of virtual interline with the operational reliability that traditional interline was designed to provide. It establishes airline-defined rules for handling disruptions, baggage transfer, and servicing, giving travel providers control over irregular operations, ownership of the customer relationship and the ability to extend their networks without lengthy partnership negotiations.
Three Key Challenges: Disruption, Baggage, and Accountability
It’s worth examining in greater detail the central challenges that connected travel addresses. The first wave of non-traditional interlining demonstrated that new combinations were possible, but it also exposed three core issues that matter to airlines and passengers: disruption handling, baggage transfer, and accountability.
- Disruption handling is the most visible test of any connectivity model.
Early virtual interlining (and self-connect approaches) often left passengers unprotected when delays or cancellations caused missed connections, requiring them to arrange alternative travel on their own or approach airline ticket desks for an airline that did not have visibility into the passenger's connection. Connected travel defines how disruption is managed throughout the journey, including rebooking and passenger service. Clear responsibility is assigned to those who support the traveller at each stage, even when multiple airlines or modes are involved. This removes uncertainty around missed connections and gives passengers confidence that their trip will be fully managed from start to finish.
- Baggage transfer represents one of the most visible and frustrating aspects of self-connect and virtual interline arrangements.
When travellers are compelled to claim and recheck their bags between legs of their journey, it can turn a workable itinerary into an unacceptable and stressful experience. At a time when self-connecting passengers comprise more than 200 million total passengers (in 2023, according to OAG), the need for a more convenient and streamlined baggage transfer process is critical. Connected travel enables airside baggage transfer between carriers, allowing journeys to be treated as a single trip rather than separate segments where the traveller must recheck bags between flights.
- A single point of accountability addresses the question that travellers ask when something goes wrong: Who can help me?
In traditional interline, this is defined by the codeshare agreement. With virtual interlining, this is often unclear. Connected travel establishes that the airline selling the itinerary owns the trip – and the relationship with the traveler. Servicing, recovery, and communication follow defined rules regardless of the number of carriers involved. This gives passengers a single source of truth for their entire journey and a single entity responsible for servicing it, while carriers can focus on their point-to-point model.
Connected Travel and Modern Airline Retailing (Offer‑Order)
Offer and order retailing standards will go hand in hand with connected travel. Designed by IATA to create a transparent customer experience through real-time data sharing, the offer and order framework is fueling modern airline retailing. Put simply, an "offer" is what the airline presents to the passenger at booking, while an "order" is the one record that captures everything about that passenger’s trip. These move booking and servicing away from rigid, pre-published fares and legacy distribution systems toward airline-controlled offers, orders, and dynamic bundles. The shift also gives airlines greater control over what they sell and how they support travellers, but it requires more explicit rules on which products can be offered and how they are delivered.
Connected travel benefits from this model. According to IATA, the offer and order framework is explicitly designed to replace legacy interline with partnerships that airlines can control, supporting "any combination of flights and partner services." A 2024 BCG/IATA survey found that 81% of airline executives reported their airlines had adopted New Distribution Capability (NDC), the protocol on which offers and orders are built, with some achieving NDC penetration of more than 50% of indirect channel bookings.
Connected travel can be a defined product set within the airline's offer catalogue, presenting multi-segment journeys with known commercial terms and agreed operating rules to customers, much like the low-cost carrier French bee has done with its French bee Connect platform.
It enables the airline's offer management system to create, price, and distribute trips as any other product, rather than as opaque combinations offered by third parties.
Three aspects of connected travel align particularly well with offer and order principles:
- Connected travel keeps offer creation manageable. Multi-segment, multi-carrier journeys can create an overwhelming number of combinations. But only connected travel technology predefines which are commercially viable and operationally supportable, so the airline's retailing system generates offers only for connections the airline can deliver and service.
- Connected travel supports one order and a single point of accountability, even when multiple carriers or transportation modes are involved. The airline that makes the offer owns the order and the relationship, while the technology and partner framework handles rebooking, disruption management, and baggage transfer across participating carriers and modes.
- Connected travel enables consistent delivery across the trip. Modern retailing requires the same order to support changes, handle disruptions, provide ancillaries, and deliver services. Connected travel defines how this works when more than one operator is involved, for example, which party communicates with the traveller, how protection products are triggered, how bags are transferred, and how information about the journey is shared back with the airline.
The Network Effect: How Connected Travel Strengthens as Participation Grows
These are all important benefits for travellers; the upside of connected travel multiplies for airlines and other transport providers through increased participation. Each participating airline (or rail operator, ferry, or ground transportation provider) adds new connection options that can be sold and supported across the network. Shared operating rules make connections more predictable and reduce the complexity of working across partners. As participation grows, all travel suppliers gain a broader reach without additional agreements.
A great example of this network effect is Air France’s Smart Connect platform, which offers passengers a convenient multi-modal travel experience bookable in a single transaction. Through the platform, travellers on Paris-to-Geneva and Paris-to-Zurich routes can simultaneously book rail service with Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) as part of a comprehensive travel package. Dohop’s technology simplifies the connection between Air France and SBB’s systems, ensuring a connected, friction-free trip for passengers.
For airlines, connected travel provides a way to extend their networks without the overhead or limitations of traditional interline or the unpredictability and liability of virtual interline models. It allows them to sell journeys beyond their operated routes, maintain control of the customer relationship, and support passenger trips through disruption and baggage handling. With responsibility for servicing and recovery defined across the journey, airlines gain better insight into how connections perform and can make faster, more confident decisions about which markets to grow, refine, or discontinue.
For rail operators, connected travel opens access to demand that would not otherwise reach their network. By linking rail segments into air itineraries with aligned schedules, servicing expectations, and handover responsibilities, operators can position their offering as part of longer journeys as well as domestic trips. It also gives rail operators a more straightforward way to work with airlines, with consistent support across transportation modes and participation in a broader travel network, without capital investment.
Connected Travel in Action
The network effect is also demonstrated by platforms already in operation. easyJet's Dohop-powered FlightConnections platform (formerly Worldwide by easyJet) now connects with over 20 airlines, most recently Air Europa, allowing easyJet to tap into the over 70 million passengers already self-connecting through European airports, particularly for long-haul flights.
Scoot also recently partnered with Dohop to launch its own connected travel platform. As Scoot CCO Calvin Chan describes it, the partnership “allows customers to book flights from Singapore to over 80 additional destinations across the globe,” dramatically expanding the airline’s footprint. This illustrates both the scale of demand and the opportunity for airlines to capture it through connected travel.
What Is Ahead for 2026
Given the size of the opportunity, airlines are prioritising connectivity models that offer greater commercial agility, operational clarity, and control. Traditional interline will remain relevant, but faster, more flexible ways to extend networks are gaining ground. Over time, connected travel is becoming the standard approach to building, selling, and supporting multi-segment, multi-carrier journeys.
As airlines evaluate their connectivity strategies, many are also reassessing how connected travel fits within broader retailing and network ambitions. The model provides a practical path to network expansion that aligns with modern retailing principles while improving how journeys are sold, managed, and supported across carriers.
As participation increases, both the connected travel community and model become more valuable, with broader reach, more reliable connections, and a shared operating framework that reduces friction across the ecosystem. Early adopters are helping shape how connected travel is defined and implemented. Others will increasingly find themselves adapting to standards set elsewhere.
To learn more about our focus on connected travel and work with over 100 airlines and travel partners worldwide to support connected flights as part of a single, integrated journey, using retail-ready technology, get in touch with us here.
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