One of the most onerous parts of international flying is being simplified by American Airlines.
The carrier announced on Tuesday that it’s launching a new pilot initiative in which passengers arriving in the US on an international flight will no longer need to claim their checked baggage in the Customs area and recheck their luggage before proceeding to their connecting flight. Instead, passengers will be able to proceed directly from Passport Control to a TSA checkpoint and onto their connecting flight—no fussing with checked baggage required.
Typically, all passengers arriving into the US from an international destination are required to bring all of their bags—including checked luggage—to the Customs and Border Protection checkpoint for inspection. After the Customs inspection is complete, travelers then need to recheck their bags with their airline before boarding their connecting flight. “Failure to obtain your baggage after your international flight will result in it not arriving at your final destination,” the CBP website says. The whole process can feel like a headache, to say the least.
American’s new program, called International Remote Baggage Screening (IRBS), will launch later this week on the airline’s daily flight from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles. American and US Customs and Border Protection both expect to roll out the program to additional cities in the near future.
“By leveraging advanced technology and working with Sydney Airport and our vendor partners BagCheck and Brock Solutions, we are enhancing safety and security while streamlining the CBP baggage inspection process to make global travel smoother and more convenient for our customers,” Gary Tomasulo, American’s VP of global corporate security, said in a statement.
The new baggage initiative is part of a larger effort by American to streamline the international arrivals process. In February, the airline launched a program called One Stop Security, which eliminates the need for passengers arriving to the US on certain international routes to go through security screening a second time before proceeding to their connecting flight. That program launched on American’s route from London Heathrow to Dallas-Fort Worth on February 4.
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