bmvaughn

Wondering if I were booked to fly ORD-SFO and IRROPS hit whether it's possible that UA would ever rebook me ORD-YYC-SFO if I told them I had my passport?

Has anyone ever been routed via Canada during irrops?

ual744777sta

Even if UA did I don't think CBP would like it or even allow it. It could potentially create a logistical nightmare at Canadian airports in the transborder area.

gomike

Well I doubt they would send out a YYC flight from ORD before a SFO flight.

trekwars2000

I don't see why not. CO rerouted me on a bump HNL-NGO-GUM when I was flying HNL-GUM. All I had to have was a passport. That was a good bump. Went from Y to C

LAX

Plus, I figure it would be more likely for UA to route someone through one of its other hubs (ie: DEN & LAX) to allow for more connection possibilities.

LAX

ual744777sta

GUM has slightly diffrent immigration procedures. But for IRROPS when UA is paying I doubt they will do it especially when Canaidan aviation fees (NAVCAN?) are alot higher than US fees (FAA).

mahasamatman

Different equipment.

I don't believe that's based on a per-passenger model, so as long as the plane is flying there should be no additional cost on that front.

MatthewLAX

During a busy summer travel day in 2006, my LAX-IAD flight was cancelled and all other flights through all other cities were full on both UA and US unless I wanted to fly LAX-SAN-PHX-CLT-IAD.

I found availability on AC, flying LAX-YUL-DCA, but UA refused to put me on those flights. I did score a double upgrade the next morning on UA946, but I did not like arriving a day late.

Ari

The OP is not asking to be interlined-- your case would have required an interline. Apples and Oranges.

work2fly

IME, it depends on the agent.

I've been offered some fairly creative re-routes yet some agents simply don't like to take the time (or the perceived risk to their job) to identify or even consider anything but "conventional" routings.

I'm curious to hear about other experiences.

MatthewLAX

UA did not deny my request because of an interline issue, they told me that US-Canada-US flights were not allowed. They had me on hold for ten minutes to "check" this out. Maybe there were just b.s.ing me, but it did not seem like it.

I don't know what the rules are specifically, but try booking LAX-DCA on AC's website and you get this message:

"Air Canada can not travel solely between U. S. cities."

You must book the flights separately; you cannot book a LAX-YUL, YUL-DCA flight together.

mahasamatman

But they offered an interline on UA and US.

See http://www.dot.gov/ost/ogc/subject/f...eCabotage.html. However, this situation doesn't seem to be the same as long as UA is the carrier.

gbsfo

As I understand it, AC cannot sell a ticket between 2 US cities and UA(or any US carrier) cannot sell a ticket between two Canadian cities. How this works in the real world in terms of which operating carriers work, with codeshares and all, I have no idea.

Shareholder

This would be a breach of the Open Skies agreement between the two countries as one cannot transit Canada to get between two US points, nor the US to get between two Canadian points. Also, given American border requirements one would have to have a passport and I doubt many domestic US fliers would carry those with them on a regular basis. US officials would not permit you to transit in the sterile transborder boarding area without preclearing US customs and immigration. You could not just walk off a plane at one gate and line up to board another at the outbound gate.

All that said, I once found it cheaper to buy a pair of weekend discount fares between YYC-DFW and DFW-YYZ to get from YYC-YYZ on CP and AA. However, since each set of tickets was independent of one another, I had no problems even with customs officers when I told them what I was doing. (That was a long time ago, when the Americans weren't so freaked about the border!)

mahasamatman

Codeshares make no difference. Codeshares are a marketing gimmick and (AFAIK) have no legal ramifications except for the Fly America Act.