Worldwide vacationers, rejoice: America and the UK are lastly rethinking one in all their most annoying airport rituals.
For many years, anybody flying from the U.S. into the U.Okay. and catching a connecting flight elsewhere on the continent or past has confronted the identical irritating drill: Choose up your checked bag after customs, haul it via a maze of hallways, after which drop it off at a recheck station (hopefully earlier than the bag verify cutoff time—in any other case it must be rebooked on a later flight) earlier than going via safety a second time.
However change is within the air. The U.S. Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) and the U.Okay. Division for Transport (DfT) have partnered with American Airways on a brand new pilot program that will save vacationers time at a number of the busiest airports on the earth.
Referred to as One-Cease Safety (OSS), the system prescreens passengers and their checked baggage at their departure airport, permitting them to go to their subsequent gate as quickly as they land with out having to go via safety once more. The U.Okay. is one nation, just like the U.S., that rescreens as a rule, to make sure connecting passengers meet its safety protocols earlier than boarding one other flight (another nations skip it to streamline the transit expertise or as a result of they belief the originating airport’s safety protocols). Not rescreening passengers from the U.S. means the U.Okay. acknowledges that the U.S. screening system is no less than equal to that of the U.Okay.
For now, OSS, which deliberately “simplifies the connection course of,” in accordance with an announcement from American Airways, is out there just for flights from Dallas-Fort Price Worldwide Airport (DFW) or Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Worldwide Airport (ATL) to London Heathrow Airport (LHR). Nonetheless, different departure airports are anticipated to be added later this yr.
American is a member of the oneworld Alliance, which additionally contains British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Iberia, Japan Airways, and Qantas, amongst others. This implies passengers connecting from Dallas on a oneworld flight will keep away from customs upon touchdown in London. Some SkyTeam alliance airways, together with Delta Air Strains and Virgin Atlantic, also can skip safety in England’s capital.
It’s value mentioning, nonetheless, that these routes aren’t exempt from the brand new U.Okay. digital journey authorization (ETA) system. As of January 8, 2025, this method requires vacationers flying into England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Eire to use for permission to journey to the U.Okay. forward of time. To acquire the U.Okay.’s ETA, vacationers should fill out a questionnaire with fundamental private data and pay a 10-pound payment (roughly US$13, primarily based on present conversion charges).
Is One-Cease Safety coming to the USA?
In 2021, Congress handed a invoice authorizing TSA to develop a pilot program that would finish the recheck shuffle stateside. At the moment, rechecking in the USA on inbound worldwide flights with a home connection is a requirement of a number of federal statutes and rules as a matter of nationwide safety. In September, then-TSA administrator David Pekoske mentioned on the Skift International Discussion board, a journey business convention, that the hope was to roll out an OSS program within the U.S. in 2025. (Pekoske, nonetheless, left his job in January, when the brand new administration entered into workplace.)
Nonetheless, within the press launch asserting the DFW to LHR pilot program, Nate Gatten, chief authorities affairs officer for American Airways, teased the chance that OSS may broaden to work in the other way, too.
The OSS program operates equally to the preclearance packages that exist at some worldwide airports—together with within the Bahamas, Canada, Eire, and the United Arab Emirates—permitting vacationers’ luggage to go straight via to their ultimate vacation spot, no passenger handoff required.