260 Airlines to Bitcoin Payments Bitnet Partnership Opens Up

 A payment network owned by major international airlines such as American Airways, British Airways and Lufthansa, has Joined hands with bitcoin payment processor called Bitnet.
Over 260,The integration allows of UATP’s airlines to accept bitcoin through Bitnet, starting today. UATP is credited with issuing the first-ever charge card,Introduced in 1936. As of 2014, the company processes around $14bn in payments from corporate customers, travel agents and retail consumers.
Additional UATP merchants include JetBlue, Qantas, US Airways and United Airlines.
vice president of solutions Akif Khan strategy at Bitnet, said he expects the airline’s clients to enable the payment method given the high cost of credit card processing, challenges with fraud mitigation and the need for improved cross-border payment tools.
Khan told CoinDesk:

"It's very much in the airlines’ interest for the consumer to pay with bitcoin given that the airline will have cheaper fees and they know that money can't be taken away in a fraudulent transaction."

Wendy Ward the UATP vice president of marketing and communication said her company’s decision reflects the "Interest shown by many carriers" in bitcoin. Notably, UATP has long been an advocate for emerging payment methods, adding PayPal integration in 2009 and partnering with Alipay in 2013.
Though no airlines will accept bitcoin at launch, Khan expects the partnership will do much to encourage these businesses to enter commercial agreements with his firm.
"It's putting a foundation in place that enables this global network of airlines to have a much lower barrier to entry if they wish to accept bitcoin," he added.
UATP will not charge added fees for bitcoin processing, however, it did confirm that Bitnet is compensating it for the ability to process transactions through its network.