Widgets

But that means DL also has to reciprocate for the airlines it has agreements with. If DL believes that its mishandled baggage ratio is better than its partners, then it's losing money with baggage agreements that are too generous.

DL doesn't want to put its "hard" work in good baggage handling to waste by being responsible for other airlines' bags when the other airlines can't even transfer them to DL on-time.

Interline baggage agreements create a moral hazard because airlines with these agreements have an incentive to prioritize their own luggage first, and only transfer OAL luggage after bags that terminate with them are handled. Without any interline agreements, airlines would care about all its luggage that it carries. The cost, however, is creating an inconvenience to customers by requiring longer MCTs.

PayItForward

Not having check-through agreements benefits the big players since passengers will be 'trained' to book all flights on own metal or at least all on one ticket to avoid picking up and rechecking luggage. And if you are only Elite on one airline, you may have to pay luggage fees on the 2nd airline.

beckoa

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Nice DL, nice.

PayItForward

One additional point. Some airports, if you need to pick up check luggage and re-check them, this only happens by clearing customs and entering the country (e.g. Changi airport). This means no more easy transits and going through the full customs and security at the "transit" airports.

E.g. http://www.changiairport.com/en/pass...e/transit.html

MSPeconomist

It's especially bad in SIN when you're transferring from another airline to DL due to the following: For flights exSIN, you can "do" OLCI but you cannot complete the process without talking to staff at the DL check in counter to answer security questions. No one is there until about two and a half hours before the flight, so that once you go land side you are stuck in some horrible crowded waiting area with miserable hard plastic chairs. You cannot go airside for shops, restaurants, lounges, the butterfly garden, etc. until DL opens their check in line. It's horrible.

warakorn

There is an easy solution for that problem.
Collect the bags shortly before DL check in desks open (at the special checkpoint for left luggage).
Until then you can stay in the more exciting airside part of the airport.

Often1

This thread contains many posts who believe that they must book separate tickets because they have segments on non ST carriers. That is simply not true. So long as DL has an interline agreement with the other carrier, it may ticket (and check bags) onto that carrier.

The reasons people split itineraries into multiple tickets is because they find cheaper total fares that way. That is fine, but interlining your luggage becomes a cost of the cheaper total fare.

Not only is there nothing in the split ticket issue for DL, but there is risk. While the risk is transferred to the downstream carrier outgoing, in theory it evens out. If DL is accepting cross-ticket bags the other way, DL is accepting all of the risk.

Conjugated tickets do not bother me. That is simply an IATA term which dates back to the days when it was not possible to print more than 4 coupons on a ticket because that is how many carbons would allow for a passenger receipt which was still legible. Thus, on a 6-segment journey, two booklets were required and by entering the pre-printed ticket # of the other in the conjunction box, the tickets became conjugated. E.g., the functional equivalent of one ticket. That same concept remains today although carbon paper went out with propellers.

Xeno

True, but the price difference is significant since I am flying D1 on DL then basic economy on the next carrier. I have never found a way for DL to blend such tickets in a way that comes close to buying separate tickets.

The liability of interlining works both ways since I am talking about international RT.

Pharaoh

It's not all that difficult. Most travel agents can do it so you could consider using a TA and their fee may be less than the fare and hassle savings. I suspect DL agents cannot do it is because it's not all that common and they simply are not trained in all the functions that GDSs provide.

DiverDave

And it turns out that our corporate travel agent can't issue DL and UA on a single ticket because we have corporate discounts with both. Sigh.

They did know about DL's announcement.

David

Widgets

I've been told that Delta ticket counter agents are supposed to be charging for both airline's baggage fees when checking a bag through 2 separate tickets. I mean the employees are supposed to pull up the other airline's web site (if necessary) and manually look up the bag fee for the separate ticket's routing and charge for that too, then hand the customer the coupon for the fee to hand to the other airline to prove payment.

I don't think this is being consistently practiced based on responses here. It sounds like customers are only paying 1 fee on 2 separate tickets currently. If what I've learned is true, then this new policy effective January 2016 shouldn't be changing the amount of fees paid--only the hassle of having to claim the bag and check it in again.

jrmsp

TA here.

Totally impractical to ticket interline connections on one ticket, DL's rules rarely will allow it. Example: DLMSPEWR UAEWRLHR
All on one ticket: $3339. Separately, $258DL + $1443UA = $1701

We also rarely, if ever, ticket round trips on one ticket, even when fare allows it. Example MSP-ORD on DL and ORD-MSP on UA.....if the UA portion need to be changed it's an absolute freakin' NIGHTMARE.

SamuelS

With UA and AA, if putting them on with other carriers tickets and booking >3 months out, you also have the bonus of the nightmare that comes with the almost guaranteed schedule changes.

DiverDave

Anecdotally, DL's good baggage handling has not been good to me in the past 12 months.

It includes taking a bag checked in at HSV that was checked through to FAI with AS on the last leg, and throwing it onto the carousel at SEA instead of giving it to AS as tagged. So AS got to pay to have that bag delivered to the hotel at 4:00 a.m when it was in no way their fault. (BTW I do love the DL bag tracking system. It shows all and tells all. )

And it includes taking a bag checked in with UA at SBA and DL leaving it behind in ATL when I had over a 90 minute layover in ATL. DL paid to have it delivered, but the bag delivery contract here is quite miserly and DL paid very little to have it delivered the next day. Though it did cost them 2500 SM.

David

Widgets

I saw this happen in SEA on DL-DL connections more than twice when I worked in baggage service. I don't like SEA's transfer reliability... anecdotally at least. The last time it happened, I had been prepared to call SEA and they sent the bag through security again and it made the flight.