Modernizing checkout for two airlines

Our challenge

Alaska needed a single, flexible checkout for Alaska and Hawaiian as it replaced its legacy experience. Longtime Alaska customers had familiar ways of booking and could be wary of sweeping changes. The project had to modernize checkout for two brands without making it feel unfamiliar to the people who relied on it.

There were also clear problems to solve: travelers couldn’t see their full price until payment, mobile forms expanded into long pages, and accessibility requests could trigger assistance they hadn’t asked for.

Solution

The new checkout had to bridge legacy and modern systems, holding onto Alaska's most frequent travelers while moving the brand forward. I was brought onto the team for my checkout background to own the project through launch and post-MVP iteration.

15%

increase in bookings

5 rounds

iterative user testing

2 weeks

design to delivery timeline

Role

Product Designer leading checkout design. I set a direction engineering could build against within two weeks, and carried the work through launch and iteration. Launched in 2025

What changed

Make mobile forms easier to complete and review

Traveler forms open as focused dialogs. Once someone finishes a form, they return to a concise summary instead of a page filled with expanded fields.

Let travelers specify the assistance they want

The old form bundled mobility devices and airport assistance into one request. That could result in a traveler being offered a wheelchair they hadn’t asked for — an assumption likely to land as offensive, rather than helpful. I separated the choices so travelers could tell Alaska what support they actually wanted. Design validated by an External Disabilities Advisory Board.

Keep the price visible

I brought one price summary through the traveler, seats, and payment steps. Travelers can see what they’ve added and what the trip costs throughout checkout.

Use trip review to catch missed choices

The payment page brings the trip into one review. It shows seats already selected and offers a way to add them if the traveler skipped that step, creating a useful opportunity for both the customer and the business.

What changed after launch

Before launch, I raised a concern about a disabled primary CTA behavior that would leave people unsure what to fix. After we saw travelers get stuck, we changed the pattern to keep our primary CTA enabled and show errors beside the relevant fields. That approach is now the standard across Alaska’s critical revenue flows.