American Airlines Made Layovers At London Heathrow Airport A Lot Smoother For Certain Travelers

The London Heathrow Airport (LHR) was considered one of the busiest airports in the world in 2023, according to TimeOut. As someone who passed through LHR during a layover one year later, it's safe to say the publication's findings are not far off. The United Kingdom travel hub is quite massive (American Airlines' largest European gateway), so when you get your flight itinerary and see that you'll be passing through here, you might be less than thrilled on a time crunch. If you're booking an international money-saving open-jaw flight, you'll be screened again by customs and security cutting it close to your departure. Fortunately, one airline recognized the hassle and is taking steps to benefit their passengers — well, some of their passengers. 

American Airlines launched a One Stop Security (OSS) program at the beginning of February 2025, through which passengers can eliminate the security lines and X-rays a second time during their trip. This program came to fruition when the airline partnered with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the U.K. Department for Transport (DfT). Their goal was simple: Make travel easier for American Airlines passengers. However, only American Airlines is promoting this new benefit, but there are restrictions, and not every departure destination is eligible. So, you still might want to look up every airport hack possible to zip through airport security.

Dallas, Texas, locals and visitors can finally kiss their anxiety goodbye after being instructed to take out their liquids and electronics and place them in a separate bin. American Airlines' OSS program only applies to those who fly out of the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport (DFW) and into LHR's Terminals 3 or 5, making the program extremely concentrated (at the time of this article's publication). The OSS program also only applies to arrivals from DFW to LHR, not the other way around. So, if you're traveling from the U.S. to another country with an LHR layover, and you can make the trek to Dallas before leaving America, it might be worth the extra trip. According to the Chief Government Affairs Officer for American Airlines, Nate Gatten, they hope to streamline this service to more airports. However, until the airline expands the rule to more origin destinations, many passengers still need to avoid potential mistakes that slow down their airport security experience.

While only Texas passengers are currently able to take advantage of OSS, American does have a wide array of partnerships that make the umbrella a bit wider. Their partnerships across the Atlantic Ocean include: Iberia, Finnair, and British Airways, with British Airways being LHR's most dominant airline (via Britannica). This allows for a lot more opportunity to test drive the program before, as Gatten mentioned, they open it up to airports.

Picture this: You get off an 8-hour international flight and you have about an hour after de-planing to rush through customs and security. Then, you have to find your terminal in an airport you've never been to. Your chest gets tight, your feet start moving faster, and you fear you're going to bump into someone along the way. The last thing you want to do is hop in another line that reaches nearly as far back as the destination you came from! The OSS Program eradicates all of that emotion, making your travels a hop-off, hop-on experience.

American Airlines started with DFW because it's the airline's largest travel hub in the U.S. Connecting it to their largest European gateway only made sense. Now, American is putting its customers first. David Seymour, the airline's Chief Operating Officer, stated that it will be "a more convenient and significantly less rushed connection experience — one that our customers won't just see, they'll feel." This process will eliminate the fear of missed flights (and actual missed flights). It will allow for much smoother connections on an already daunting flight overseas.