I live in the San Francisco area and fly United almost exclusively. How come I can find Lufthansa flights at $781 to Barcelona but the United portal is showing $1541 for those same flights codesharing with Lufthansa. In past experiences these flights should be the same price with United on account of their agreement...

Why is this the case? Thank you

LH-UA have an immunized Joint Venture which means between the USA and Europe they can coordinate on prices, but they are not required to. Each may choose to undercut the other if they feel it benefits their company. Also, the routings each company lists first may differ. The JV is only on the Atlantic leg. One carrier may push a connect where more of the flying is on a flight that’s not part of the joint venture so they keep more of the revenue. Also, I’ve seen cases where an airline gives lower priced connecting legs to its own code vs a JV partner. For example, United may offer a $25 add on to the ORD fare for all MKE connections, but only offer that deal for UA coded flights.

And then once you grapple codeshare ideology, look at what Virgin Atlantic habitually does that defies all logic, continuously undercutting the operating carrier, or the dominant carrier of a two carrier trip.

eta unknown wrote:

And then once you grapple codeshare ideology, look at what Virgin Atlantic habitually does that defies all logic, continuously undercutting the operating carrier, or the dominant carrier of a two carrier trip.

Doesn’t matter if they undercut the operating carrier. The operating carrier most likely gets a set amount for each ticket. It’s called a spa agreement.

32andBelow wrote:

eta unknown wrote:

And then once you grapple codeshare ideology, look at what Virgin Atlantic habitually does that defies all logic, continuously undercutting the operating carrier, or the dominant carrier of a two carrier trip.

Doesn’t matter if they undercut the operating carrier. The operating carrier most likely gets a set amount for each ticket. It’s called a spa agreement.

Qantas does this all the time, if you are for example flying from Europe to Perth, Qantas J Class is generally the cheapest, even though the entire flight/both sectors are operated by Emirates. and quite a difference it is sometimes, going into hundreds of dollars.

It also depends how the ticketing is handled and how well the reservation systems interface. Sometimes each airline selling a flight has a separate allocation of seats. As we know most airlines use a fare-bucket system so when all the seats at the cheapest price are booked, they start selling out of the next, more expensive bucket, and so on. With separate allocations for each airline, it is quite likely that they aren't selling out of the same bucket at the same time, and occasionally the buckets can be very far apart indeed.
With a true Joint Venture it would be preferable to avoid allocations and sell all seats directly from the operating airline's reservation system. But the cost of making the IT changes to allow this to happen may well outweigh all possible benefits. Now this doesn't explain Virgin Atlantic and Delta, since VS uses the same reservation software as DL, but maybe not the same servers...

Can any airline if they both agree put each others code on their flights? For example could EK put it's codes on VS transatlantic or VS put it's code on EK far East or Australia flights. Or does the airline require route authority for a particular route before it could add it's code.

flyjay123 wrote:

Can any airline if they both agree put each others code on their flights? For example could EK put it's codes on VS transatlantic or VS put it's code on EK far East or Australia flights. Or does the airline require route authority for a particular route before it could add it's code.

There's no simple answer. It depends on the terms of the air service agreement between the pair of countries served. Some would allow it, some would not.

Exactly... you'll notice there's virtually no codesharing on AU-Japan flights.

How does interlining work?

INFINITI329 wrote:

How does interlining work?

As I understand it there are two different kinds of interlining. A ticketing interline which allows a combination of more than one carrier on a single ticket. The other is a baggage interline which allows checked baggage to be transferred between different carriers without the need to reclaim and recheck. Airlines will generally have have an agree that covers both ticketing and baggage but not always it may be ticketing but not baggage.

There's also cargo interlining.
And there are ticketing interline agreements that exist purely for mutual assistance in case of irrops - you can't book the two airlines on one ticket yourself; ones where the two airlines don't advertise the existence of interline tickets but they can be booked over the phone or through travel agents; and the very strange situation of German carrier Hahn Air, who have interline agreements with all sorts of unlikely airlines and make most of their money issuing tickets on other people's metal with none of their own flights involved. Dodgier on-line booking services combine flights on two airlines that have no interline agreement between themselves by selling a through ticket on a Hahn Air ticket number. But when the passenger checks in, they find that while the passenger journey is honoured, airline A refuses to check baggage through to airline B as there is no baggage agreement.

And there are large numbers of people who mistakenly think that because an interline agreement exists, airlines will through check baggage when there is no through ticket, only to discover that this hardly ever happens except within the same alliance, and even then increasingly rarely.

Andy33 wrote:

Dodgier on-line booking services combine flights on two airlines that have no interline agreement between themselves by selling a through ticket on a Hahn Air ticket number. But when the passenger checks in, they find that while the passenger journey is honoured, airline A refuses to check baggage through to airline B as there is no baggage agreement.

And does that result in a mess of sorts, especially if the passenger needs a visa for destinations where he may have to collect and re-check baggage?

Most certainly it does. There have been several cases recently where the passenger was denied boarding as a result of lacking a visa to reclaim and recheck baggage at the intermediate point. It would have worked if no baggage had been involved (or if the passenger hadn't needed a visa and sufficient time was available to clear immigration, reclaim, walk round to departures, and check in for the second flight). Of course the booking service says they don't know the immigration status of the passenger. They seem to work on the "there'll be another sucker along in a minute" principle.

enilria wrote:

LH-UA have an immunized Joint Venture which means between the USA and Europe they can coordinate on prices, but they are not required to. Each may choose to undercut the other if they feel it benefits their company.

I don't understand this at all. LH/UA/AC have a metal neutral JV which essentially means they split all revenue (and losses). So they each make the same exact amount of money on both of those tickets regardless of which one charges what.
For all intents and purposes it's the same airline on the route. I don't understand why the prices are so different but from a revenue perspective it shouldn't make any difference to either airline. Am i wrong?
I too am a UA FF and I know that LH fares are usually higher than UA fares even for the same exact flight but I've never seen a difference that large. In fact fro mwhere i live (BOS), LH is usually the most expensive carrier to Europe and they don't seem to make any attempt at competing for the lower fares, My believe is that from a business strategy perspective LH doesn't want to be seen as a low fare carrier and doesn't want to be involved in that market segment. That's the only justification I have for it.

Spiderguy252 wrote:

Andy33 wrote:

Dodgier on-line booking services combine flights on two airlines that have no interline agreement between themselves by selling a through ticket on a Hahn Air ticket number. But when the passenger checks in, they find that while the passenger journey is honoured, airline A refuses to check baggage through to airline B as there is no baggage agreement.

Its not really Dodgy. The airlines , in with dealing with Hahn Air, have the ability to restrict the creation of psuedo-interline itineraries from being issued by Hahn. I guess many just aren't reading the fine print when signing up for Hahn's agreements.

Andy33 wrote:

It also depends how the ticketing is handled and how well the reservation systems interface. Sometimes each airline selling a flight has a separate allocation of seats. As we know most airlines use a fare-bucket system so when all the seats at the cheapest price are booked, they start selling out of the next, more expensive bucket, and so on. With separate allocations for each airline, it is quite likely that they aren't selling out of the same bucket at the same time, and occasionally the buckets can be very far apart indeed.
With a true Joint Venture it would be preferable to avoid allocations and sell all seats directly from the operating airline's reservation system. But the cost of making the IT changes to allow this to happen may well outweigh all possible benefits. Now this doesn't explain Virgin Atlantic and Delta, since VS uses the same reservation software as DL, but maybe not the same servers...

This certainly used to happen regularly, I don't know if its still common now. But about 10 years ago my Dad was in Paris and needed a last minute ticket to the US. He just went to the airport. He went up to the US airways counter and tried to get a ticket for the flight to PHL, they told him they where sold out. He went to to Air France (I believe) and noticed they had a flight to PHL. He bought a ticket. He gets to the gate and it is the US Airways A330 and he is like WTF!!!! US had no seats left on their code-share but Air France did.. That made me immediately wonder what happens to US Airways Non Rev stanbys in that situation????

airbazar wrote:

enilria wrote:

LH-UA have an immunized Joint Venture which means between the USA and Europe they can coordinate on prices, but they are not required to. Each may choose to undercut the other if they feel it benefits their company.

I don't understand this at all. LH/UA/AC have a metal neutral JV which essentially means they split all revenue (and losses). So they each make the same exact amount of money on both of those tickets regardless of which one charges what.
For all intents and purposes it's the same airline on the route. I don't understand why the prices are so different but from a revenue perspective it shouldn't make any difference to either airline. Am i wrong?
I too am a UA FF and I know that LH fares are usually higher than UA fares even for the same exact flight but I've never seen a difference that large. In fact fro mwhere i live (BOS), LH is usually the most expensive carrier to Europe and they don't seem to make any attempt at competing for the lower fares, My believe is that from a business strategy perspective LH doesn't want to be seen as a low fare carrier and doesn't want to be involved in that market segment. That's the only justification I have for it.

AirBazar, you are correct, but you have to keep in mind that this metral neutral JV is only valid for the transatlantic leg of the whole booking. So if someone books BUD-FRA-EWR-IAH, as far as I know, only the FRA-EWR segment falls under the (metal neutral) JV. But BUD-FRA and EWR-IAH will be regular codeshare flights not under the JV. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here.

So UA and LH share the costs on all their transatlantic legs, but one might charge more or one might charge less to recover these costs. The airlines are still free on pricing. And then they have to add the tag-on legs on both sides of the Atlantic, which both airlines might price differently, too. Also let's say UA might prefer to fly BUD-FRA-EWR-IAH, because they want to get the pax as soon as possible on their own metal (EWR-IAH), while LH might put the pax on UA's FRA-IAH flight, to share all costs until the final destination.

CARST wrote:

So UA and LH share the costs on all their transatlantic legs, but one might charge more or one might charge less to recover these costs. The airlines are still free on pricing. And then they have to add the tag-on legs on both sides of the Atlantic, which both airlines might price differently, too. Also let's say UA might prefer to fly BUD-FRA-EWR-IAH, because they want to get the pax as soon as possible on their own metal (EWR-IAH), while LH might put the pax on UA's FRA-IAH flight, to share all costs until the final destination.

They have the legal right to not compete on routes like BUD-IAH, but it is false that the carriers receive the same share of revenue on this routing. That's not how it works at all. The revenue on EWR-IAH is 100% UA's and BUD-FRA is 100% LH's. If there was a routing like IAH-EWR-BUD where UA operated all the legs, you can be sure they would push people to that routing.

Additionally, metal neutral or not the FRA-EWR is operated by somebody and while the financial results are shared on that leg there is still an operator to the flight. The operator gets paid its costs before any profit are divided. It's a joint venture but the transatlantic flights are not a separate corporation. UA may feel they benefit from steering passengers to the UA operated Atlantic flights even if the price is the same, but adjusting the order the flights appear in their website.

Andy33 wrote:

and the very strange situation of German carrier Hahn Air, who have interline agreements with all sorts of unlikely airlines and make most of their money issuing tickets on other people's metal with none of their own flights involved.

There's absolutely nothing dodgy about Hahn Air. The basically act as a general sales agent and provide a service to airlines that don't want to pay for distribution costs (either in the GDS or IATA ticketing) in markets the client airline doesn't serve.

enilria wrote:

CARST wrote:

So UA and LH share the costs on all their transatlantic legs, but one might charge more or one might charge less to recover these costs. The airlines are still free on pricing. And then they have to add the tag-on legs on both sides of the Atlantic, which both airlines might price differently, too. Also let's say UA might prefer to fly BUD-FRA-EWR-IAH, because they want to get the pax as soon as possible on their own metal (EWR-IAH), while LH might put the pax on UA's FRA-IAH flight, to share all costs until the final destination.

They have the legal right to not compete on routes like BUD-IAH, but it is false that the carriers receive the same share of revenue on this routing. That's not how it works at all. The revenue on EWR-IAH is 100% UA's and BUD-FRA is 100% LH's. If there was a routing like IAH-EWR-BUD where UA operated all the legs, you can be sure they would push people to that routing.

Additionally, metal neutral or not the FRA-EWR is operated by somebody and while the financial results are shared on that leg there is still an operator to the flight. The operator gets paid its costs before any profit are divided. It's a joint venture but the transatlantic flights are not a separate corporation. UA may feel they benefit from steering passengers to the UA operated Atlantic flights even if the price is the same, but adjusting the order the flights appear in their website.

Thats not true. The marketing carrier can price the through ticket at whatever rate they want. Then the marketing carrier pays a set amount for the operating carriers segment based on a pricing agreement. In an interline flight then the local prices are combined and the revenue is split accordingly.

airbazar wrote:

enilria wrote:

LH-UA have an immunized Joint Venture which means between the USA and Europe they can coordinate on prices, but they are not required to. Each may choose to undercut the other if they feel it benefits their company.

I don't understand this at all. LH/UA/AC have a metal neutral JV which essentially means they split all revenue (and losses). So they each make the same exact amount of money on both of those tickets regardless of which one charges what.
For all intents and purposes it's the same airline on the route. I don't understand why the prices are so different but from a revenue perspective it shouldn't make any difference to either airline. Am i wrong?
I too am a UA FF and I know that LH fares are usually higher than UA fares even for the same exact flight but I've never seen a difference that large. In fact fro mwhere i live (BOS), LH is usually the most expensive carrier to Europe and they don't seem to make any attempt at competing for the lower fares, My believe is that from a business strategy perspective LH doesn't want to be seen as a low fare carrier and doesn't want to be involved in that market segment. That's the only justification I have for it.

My odd LH/UA code share experience is a trip DEN to ZRH booked on the LH website. The eastbound trip was DEN - FRA - ZRH operated by LH. The DEN - FRA leg was ticketed with a UA flight number. The return was ZRH - IAD - ZRH all operated by UA, but ticketed with LX flight numbers. The trip was pretty inexpensive, about $500 and was way more expensive on either the UA or LX web sites. It worked well, I just can't figure out what any of the airlines motivations were.

mcg wrote:

My odd LH/UA code share experience is a trip DEN to ZRH booked on the LH website. The eastbound trip was DEN - FRA - ZRH operated by LH. The DEN - FRA leg was ticketed with a UA flight number. The return was ZRH - IAD - ZRH all operated by UA, but ticketed with LX flight numbers. The trip was pretty inexpensive, about $500 and was way more expensive on either the UA or LX web sites. It worked well, I just can't figure out what any of the airlines motivations were.

Do you mean DEN-IAD-ZRH? That was a little confusing to read.

32andBelow wrote:

In an interline flight then the local prices are combined and the revenue is split accordingly.

Not necessarily. Two carriers can interline where each carrier sets through fares and uses an SPA or other proration methodology rather than a sum of each carriers local fares. Happens all the time.

Look at QF and CX, for example. I can buy a QF fare connecting in HKG with onward travel on CX to mainland China. The CX flight doesn't carry QF code, there is no CX fare component, and the two carriers simply settle under the oneworld proration rules.

(If you'll indulge me, I literally have nothing to add to this thread, but this is the best thread that I have read on airliners.net in many years. This is what airliners was and has always meant to be. I don't post, hardly ever, but I am here, 24/7, and have been from the beginning. Over the last few years, I have seen my share of shit posts, and that is an understatement. This post is not one of them. Here, someone posts a legitimate question, and others answer it in an intelligent and polite manner. I've learned more about this topic in the last 5 minutes than I have in the last 19 years. Thanks for that!)

flyer1225 wrote:

mcg wrote:

My odd LH/UA code share experience is a trip DEN to ZRH booked on the LH website. The eastbound trip was DEN - FRA - ZRH operated by LH. The DEN - FRA leg was ticketed with a UA flight number. The return was ZRH - IAD - ZRH all operated by UA, but ticketed with LX flight numbers. The trip was pretty inexpensive, about $500 and was way more expensive on either the UA or LX web sites. It worked well, I just can't figure out what any of the airlines motivations were.

Do you mean DEN-IAD-ZRH? That was a little confusing to read.

Actually the return was ZRH-IAD-DEN, typed too fast and read too little. Sorry.

airbazar wrote:

enilria wrote:

LH-UA have an immunized Joint Venture which means between the USA and Europe they can coordinate on prices, but they are not required to. Each may choose to undercut the other if they feel it benefits their company.

I don't understand this at all. LH/UA/AC have a metal neutral JV which essentially means they split all revenue (and losses). So they each make the same exact amount of money on both of those tickets regardless of which one charges what.
For all intents and purposes it's the same airline on the route. I don't understand why the prices are so different but from a revenue perspective it shouldn't make any difference to either airline. Am i wrong?
I too am a UA FF and I know that LH fares are usually higher than UA fares even for the same exact flight but I've never seen a difference that large. In fact fro mwhere i live (BOS), LH is usually the most expensive carrier to Europe and they don't seem to make any attempt at competing for the lower fares, My believe is that from a business strategy perspective LH doesn't want to be seen as a low fare carrier and doesn't want to be involved in that market segment. That's the only justification I have for it.

I am not sure that having a metal neutral JV necessarily entitles one carrier equal access to sell a partner carrier's availability under its own code.

Extremely simplified example: total S class availability for a given UA-operated flight might be 50. I don't think a metal-neutral JV entitles LH to sell all 50 of those S tickets. UA might allocate LH, say, 10 of those to LH. If LH sells out of S availability quicker than UA, and none of the cheaper buckets have availability, then the LH-marketed option is going to price into a higher bucket, resulting different prices for the same itinerary. Regardless of which carrier the ticket is purchased from, the revenue would be shared under the JV terms.

I don't know the intricacies of this and I may well be wrong. But anecdotally have noticed on multiple occasions code-share connections booking into full fare buckets for the non-marketing carrier's segment driving the total price up substantially.

flyjay123 wrote:

Can any airline if they both agree put each others code on their flights? For example could EK put it's codes on VS transatlantic or VS put it's code on EK far East or Australia flights. Or does the airline require route authority for a particular route before it could add it's code.

The general idea is that the airline wishing to apply its code to a flight would need to have the rights to operate the flight itself, which is why for example EK can't place their code on QF PER-LHR-PER - they have traffic rights for UK-UAE and Australia-UAE (including via intermediate points), but not UK-Australia overflying the UAE.

Domestic-tag codeshares are another good example of this - QF's LAX-JFK-LAX flight is a perennial topic around here because it's flown on QF metal, but there are scores of other QF flights operating in the US as codeshares under the same rules of "international on-line connecting traffic only". So the flight's operated by AA or whoever but you can only buy a ticket for the QF codeshare if you're connecting internationally with QF.

eta unknown wrote:

Andy33 wrote:

and the very strange situation of German carrier Hahn Air, who have interline agreements with all sorts of unlikely airlines and make most of their money issuing tickets on other people's metal with none of their own flights involved.

There's absolutely nothing dodgy about Hahn Air. The basically act as a general sales agent and provide a service to airlines that don't want to pay for distribution costs (either in the GDS or IATA ticketing) in markets the client airline doesn't serve.

I didn't say Hahn Air was dodgy, I said that dodgy on-line ticket sellers used Hahn Air's ticketing system to generate through tickets between two airlines that don't have interline agreements with each other, with unfortunate consequences for the passengers concerned.
The airlines concerned were well known IATA members whose flights (separately) are bookable though GDSs. One was Aer Lingus.
Another poster pointed out that this could have been prevented by the actual operating carriers had they anticipated that their own interline agreements with Hahn Air would be used in this way. Hahn Air could also prevent it, and maybe they will now it has become a noticeable problem.

Yes, but your next sentence commenced with the words "dodgier" which can infer the subject of the previous sentence was dodgy. Ambiguity aside, which OTA are you referring to- are you thinking of kiwi?

eta unknown wrote:

Yes, but your next sentence commenced with the words "dodgier" which can infer the subject of the previous sentence was dodgy. Ambiguity aside, which OTA are you referring to- are you thinking of kiwi?

The example I'm thinking of was Vayama. I doubt if Kiwi would have gone to the trouble of issuing a through ticket using Hahn Air. Kiwi routinely creates itineraries from separate tickets and leaves the passengers to figure out that they need to collect and recheck bags at intermediate points (for which they might need a visa) and have zero airline assistance if the "connection" doesn't work due to schedule changes or late running. Vayama created the illusion of simplicity and reassurance that a through-ticketed journey normally enjoys, without the actual simplicity being present.

airfinair wrote:

(If you'll indulge me, I literally have nothing to add to this thread, but this is the best thread that I have read on airliners.net in many years. This is what airliners was and has always meant to be. I don't post, hardly ever, but I am here, 24/7, and have been from the beginning. Over the last few years, I have seen my share of shit posts, and that is an understatement. This post is not one of them. Here, someone posts a legitimate question, and others answer it in an intelligent and polite manner. I've learned more about this topic in the last 5 minutes than I have in the last 19 years. Thanks for that!)

I would have to agree with you, and sit back and watch, too. This thread helps "de-mystify" some of the things about code-shares and JVs.