Giving travelers confidence to change flights online

The challenge

About half of Alaska customers who change a flight do it through customer service. For the 86% who fly only once a year, changing a trip online is rarely a familiar task. The old flow looked different from booking and left travelers unsure when a choice would become final.

Solution

Working with UX Research, I found that travelers needed to understand both their options and the point at which a change would take effect. That shaped the redesign: make each choice clear, make the flow familiar, and let people explore before they commit.

86%

guests highly satisfied

$3M

support cost savings (projected)

$15M

revenue impact (projected)

Role

Sole Designer covering UX Design, UI Design, Usability Testing. Launched in 2026

The solutions

Using familiarity to build trust

I simplified the starting point for changing or cancelling a flight and used the flight cards travelers knew from booking. Seeing their trip in a familiar format helped them understand their options before deciding what to do.

Cut clutter on the first screen

Previously, travelers selected a flight, chose what to do with it, and then saw a search form open beneath it in the page. I removed the extra step and moved search into one dialog that adapts to the flights being changed.

Show what happens next

I designed every interaction to make the next step clear before a guest took it. Each flight had its own keep, change, or cancel control, while CTA responds to reflect exactly what would happen next. This pattern carried through the entire experience, reducing uncertainty at every decision point.

Nothing changes until you confirm at checkout

Research showed that travelers weren’t sure when a change took effect. I kept a message visible throughout the flow explaining that changes apply only when they confirm. In later testing, guests called it out as giving them confidence to explore.

Outcome and what's next

Post-launch, travelers rated the experience 4.37 out of 5, with about two-thirds calling it extremely satisfying. The business case also projected $3 million in support cost savings and $15 million in revenue impact; those figures are forecasts, separate from the measured satisfaction result.

Reusing booking patterns made this redesign more familiar. The next step is to establish shared patterns across booking and flight changes so the experiences stay aligned as both evolve.

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