Tag Archives for codesharing.
The takeaway isn’t just “don’t book codeshares in the first place” it is to remember that if an airline is rebooking you because your flight has been delayed or cancelled, and another airline is involved, don’t let them rebook you onto the codeshare if you can possibly avoid it!
Cathay Pacific has started routing flights over Russian airspace again, after pausing the practice as a result of Western sanctions which followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Their New York – Hong Kong flight takes a ‘polar route’ which touches the eastern part of Russia, because it’s faster and they don’t have to weight restrict flights as they do taking a longer route.
A week ago I wrote about why codeshares are great for airlines, not customers, and why you should almost never book one. There are edge cases, but in general they’re a hassle – whether because you need to get rebooked due to a schedule change or even just have a seat assigned.
What prompted me to write about this is that American Airlines, despite its close alliance with JetBlue in the Northeast, is unable to assign seats on JetBlue flights. American’s workaround wasn’t working, so now there’s a new one.
You may save a few dollars or earn more miles when one airline sells another airline’s flights but puts its own flight number on it. But when things go wrong they can get confusing. Passengers get confused, too, about where they’re flying and where to check in. And seat assignments can be difficult to obtain.
In fact right now American Airlines can’t even assign seats to customers off of a seat map when they sell JetBlue codeshares.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
