What Is an Interliner? Airline Employee Travel Meaning

By Todd Edmundson · Interline Cruise Specialist
October 2026

The Three Meanings of "Interliner"

If you searched "interliner" and landed here, there's a good chance you got a mix of results that don't match what you were actually looking for. That's because the word covers three genuinely different things.

1. The general/dictionary sense. In everyday usage, "interline" and "interliner" describe anything that connects or operates between separate lines or systems — most commonly seen in transportation and logistics contexts outside aviation entirely. If this is what showed up in your search, it's not related to anything on this site.

2. The airline-ticketing sense. In the travel industry, an "interline" ticket is a single itinerary that routes a passenger across two or more different airlines under one booking — for example, flying United for the first leg of a trip and Lufthansa for the second, on one combined ticket. This is a back-end agreement between airlines about how they handle passengers, baggage, and fares when a trip isn't operated start-to-finish by a single carrier. It has nothing to do with discounts or employee benefits — it's purely about how multi-airline itineraries are ticketed.

3. The airline-employee travel-benefit sense. This is what KTE Interliner is actually about, and it's the least publicly documented of the three. Airlines have long extended reduced-rate standby travel privileges to employees across the industry — including employees of other airlines, and of cargo carriers like FedEx, UPS, and DHL. Those same reciprocal relationships extend into cruising: cruise lines offer a separate, non-public pricing tier — interline cruise rates — exclusively to eligible airline and cargo employees, retirees who retained their travel privileges, and their immediate families.

If you're reading this because you work for an airline, FedEx, UPS, DHL, or in air traffic control, meaning #3 is the one that applies to you.

So What Makes Someone "An Interliner"?

In the context this site uses, an interliner is simply a person eligible for interline travel benefits — most commonly an active or retired airline/cargo employee, or an eligible family member. Eligibility isn't limited to flight crew: it covers gate agents, ramp and ground crew, mechanics, dispatchers, and corporate or administrative staff too, along with cargo carrier employees who are frequently surprised to learn they qualify at all.

The rates themselves aren't listed anywhere public — not on a cruise line's own site, not on Expedia, nowhere a general consumer would find them. They're only accessible through a travel advisor specifically credentialed to sell interline product and verify eligibility.

Where to Go Next

Not sure if you qualify? See the full breakdown of who's eligible, what documentation each cruise line requires, and which family members can sail with you on our eligibility page.

Want the full picture on savings, timing, and how the rates actually work? Read What Are Interline Cruise Rates? A Complete Guide for Airline Employees.

Planning a cruise? See current interline rates