United to AI Booking Bots: Not on Our Flights.

Why is United Airlines banning AI bookings? Unlike an early AI interface that just answers questions, an AI agent can take actions on your behalf. Depending on the tool and the permissions you grant it, an AI agent may be able to not just search for flights, but also log into your airline loyalty account, compare prices, and book your ticket without you even going to the airline’s website or app. United says giving third-party AI assistants access to customer accounts could expose sensitive information and lead to surprise purchases, unauthorized changes to reservations, and bots using MileagePlus miles without a user’s knowledge. There are also regulatory concerns. During check-in, passengers must acknowledge safety information about prohibited items in their luggage, including explosives. An AI agent could potentially click through that step without actually knowing what’s inside someone’s bag. United says allowing AI to handle these acknowledgments could violate FAA and Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations. The airline is updating its booking, ticketing, and distribution policies to restrict these automated interactions, including those carried out indirectly through travel agencies and aggregators. Can you still use AI to find flights on United? Yes. There’s an important distinction between using AI to research flights and allowing an AI agent to book them. Travelers can still use AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and any others to suggest destinations, compare potential routes, research fares, or put together itineraries that include United flights. You can even pass those tasks off to an AI agent. But under the new rule, those agents can’t finalize the purchase or modify an existing purchase. So ChatGPT can still find you the best price for the best flight from San Francisco to Tokyo, but you’ll have to book it yourself. This applies to all “unauthorized AI agents” — meaning AI agents not authorized by the airline. Travelers can also still use existing flight-search platforms that sync with United, like Google Flights and Kayak, which allow you to book through approved channels. Where other major airlines stand Not every airline is taking the same approach. The terms of use for Delta Air Lines state that it allows third-party agents, but notes that customers using those tools assume all risks and are still responsible for any actions the AI agent takes on their behalf. American Airlines confirmed to Fast Company that some AI tools can make purchases, though it doesn’t explicitly say which ones. Southwest Airlines is going in the opposite direction of United. In October, it launched ChatGPT integration that gives the AI platform direct, accurate access to Southwest’s flight inventory, so it has access to the best flight data. The airline says it plans to expand its AI-powered booking capabilities in the future, and while it doesn’t have a statement on whether AI agents are currently allowed to book flights, there are plenty of accounts online of travelers using it for that task. United hasn’t ruled out working with AI booking tools forever, and says it will continue evaluating the technology as AI assistants evolve. Is United worried about losing control? United says its restrictions are about protecting customers, but airline analysts have suggested there may be another motivation: staying in control of the booking process. Aviation analyst Henry Harteveldt told CBS News that United likely wants to avoid introducing a powerful and theoretically unbiased middleman between the airline and its customers. AI booking agents could eventually compare fares across dozens of airlines, find the cheapest options, and complete purchases without the need for travelers to visit an airline website or even offer input into what airline they fly. That could make booking easier for consumers, but it would also give airlines less control over how their product is presented and sold to customers. There could also be financial considerations, as AI agents use the airline’s hosted reservation systems, and a huge increase in searches and bandwidth could increase their operational costs. As of November 2026, United hasn’t given any reason for the change other than security concerns, which aren’t unfounded. AI agents aren’t infallible, and giving them access to sensitive personal information comes with risks. They can misunderstand instructions or, theoretically, take actions you never explicitly authorized. There’s also the question of how securely your information is stored and who else might gain access to it now or in the future, legally or otherwise. Generally, the less access an AI agent has to your credit cards, bank accounts, and other financial information, the less damage it can do if something goes wrong. And with AI researchers and security experts increasingly warning about the risks of giving AI systems too much control, there’s a reasonable argument for keeping humans in charge of decisions involving their money and personal information. More like this