Airline Easyjet has launched a new feature that allows customers to book other airlines’ flights and connections to other long-haul services. ‘Worldwide by Easyjet’ makes the low-fare airline the first of its kind to offer global connections with other companies.
The new service replicates traditional interline and codeshare agreements with self-connect and sales partnerships through a digital hub. The service will offer the same connectivity ‘simply and efficiently’, according to Easyjet.
Seats through ‘Worldwide by Easyjet’ are available from today. The booking option enables customers to connect their Easyjet flight with partner airlines – starting with Westjet and Norwegian using the Gatwickconnects product.
The company has plans to sign on more partners, with talks already under way for connections with middle and far-eastern airlines. In addition to collaborations at Gatwick, the company plans to expand to other key airports in Europe such as Milan Malpensa, Geneva, Amsterdam, Paris Charles De Gaulle and Barcelona.
Easyjet will also sell stand-alone tickets on behalf of partner airlines, allowing customers to book flights without connections. So far, Loganair has signed up to offer passengers the ability to buy onward flights from Glasgow and Edinburgh to the Scottish Highlands and islands, as well as the Glasgow to Barra link, the world’s only scheduled service to a beach airport. Future partner airlines will benefit from exposure to Easyjet’s 360 million website visitors.
The connectivity has been made possible by a partnership with comparison site Dohop, whose platform will enable Easyjet customers to book connections and forward flights.
Carolyn McCall, Easyjet CEO, explained: "Around 70 million passengers flying through an Easyjet airport each year are connecting on to other flights, mainly long haul, and it is this market segment that Worldwide by Easyjet will open up for us.
“Because of Easyjet’s strong positions at Europe’s leading airports and our customer focus, long-haul carriers have been asking to work with Easyjet for some time and the new technology platform has now allowed us to do so.”
easyjet.com