JFK Connection ? Delta - Virgin

Hi All,

I am traveling TPA-JFK-LHR June 15.

I have a paid F ticket (Delta 2593) from TPA-JFK leg. I am on a 717 and likely arriving in terminal 2.

Flight arrival is 6:23pm.

I have an award ticket on Virgin (VS 112) departing at 8:00pm out of terminal 4.

Question: Will DL merge the reservation into one record and send bags through? Or will I need to collect and check luggage? More importantly will 60-75 minutes be sufficient? I know DL and Virgin appear to have become more cozy in their relationship, but not sure of how streamlined.

Many thanks,

Andrew

DL can likely check your bags through to VS. You'd need to present the VS PNR at check in.

Per ExpertFlyer, MCT at JFK for DL T2 - VS T4 is 60 minutes.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...ve-thread.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...london-dl.html

RWOMAN thank you for the swift response and additional links (I will poke through them now).

Always appreciate the help on these boards.

-Andrew

Keep in mind DL cannot combine your DL and VS PNRs. As such, you're not protected on your VS flight.

I just did something similar out of PHL to get a better fare. I booked the DL flight numbers for the VS flights through DL, which will allow this.

If you booked through VS, they won't be able to do it.

Joe,

These are two separate NPR/Tickets. One is paid on DL through DL. The other is an award reservation through Virgin.

I was assuming that DL had an interline agreement with Virgin regardless of one NPR or two.

You should be able to interline. However, you cannot combine the reservations (PNRs) and be protected on the JFK-LHR VS flight if your inbound is late.

baggage: if DL accepts your bag at TPA and checks it through, DL is responsible to get it to VS at JFK and VS is responsible to get it to LHR (and thence to you if it's delayed for any reason)

you: DL **may** issue your VS boarding pass, but as far as they're concerned you're only going to JFK, and they have no responsibility to protect you onward to LHR if the TPA-JFK flight is delayed ... similarly, as far as VS is concerned, you're originating your trip at JFK, and you're entirely at their mercy if you miss the flight you're ticketed on for **any** reason

Right, considering these are 2 separate tickets booked on 2 separate airlines. Despite the interline agreement, DL will not be able to pull up the VS reservation in TPA.

It may be possible to have the bags manually tagged, but I wouldn't count on them being tagged TPA-LHR honestly. The only way this would happen if both separate tickets were purchased from DL using the DL flight numbers for the VS segment. Since the VS segment was bought from VS and the DL segment from DL, there will be a slim, if no chance of this happening.

Also, VS is just a DL partner. They are not part of Skyteam. If they were part of Skyteam, this may be more possible.

Suggestion: Get to the airport an extra 30-45 minutes prior to when you usually would and see if they can make something happen. It may take a call to the help desk or a manager to force the bags, but it may be possible if you show all of your boarding passes.

In my recent experience, DL will interline bags for their sky team partners. Had no problem doing it from DL to AF a few weeks ago. However, I was told they weren't able to do it with Alaska despite being frenemies. You may have more luck with Virgin Atlantic because of the code shares they have.

In regards to being protected, I have always been protected by DL when having 2 separate tickets on partner airlines. Heck, my last issue was in December, and the flight was delayed from SFO-JFK and I missed my Amtrak train, and they even booked me on DL flight JFK-PHL

VS is one of the airline's that DL will interline baggage to even on separate tickets. It doesn't matter who flight number its booked as. Just give them your VS PNR and the flight number. It may take a second or require someone to help them, but it can be done.