Originally Posted by
oneworld4u
While the oneworld rule book does say that all member airlines should service all their oneworld partners' tickets, what this means in practice is, to be honest, open to interpretation by individual airlines and their employees.
In reality, some find it a great deal quicker and easier, particularly if the original issuing airline uses a different GDS, to refer the customer to the original issuing airline, if it has an office close by. That can benefit the customer, by sorting out the problem much faster than having an agent work through procedures and ticketing language with which he or she is unfamiliar.
We are introducing new systems to make it easier for employees of all our member airlines to view tickets booked on other alliance members in a more "neutral" format, to make it easier for more employees to handle ticketing issues relating to other alliance members at first point of contact.
If this was the case, I wouldn't have any problems with it. Unfortunately in my experience the agent will try to get out of it because the reissue is to much work, or they do not understand to do it.
2 examples:
BA in NRT refused to reissue my BA issued xONEx ticket, and told me cathay had to reissue it. (cathay were wonderful, but it would have been much easier for BA to have done the reissue).
BA in AMS refused to reissue my AA issued xONEx ticket (after mumbling about it being a lot of work), and told me AA had to reissue it. The nearest AA office is in BRU, so not really an advantage for me as the customer.
I am happy to know you're working on this, but I fear there is a long way to go before the oneworld airlines are properly integrated.