The Star www did at one time have a booking engine/service of sorts, but it didn't last all that long. There were technical issues, but for the most part it was barely used, IIRC, so it went the way of the dodo. Originally at the very beginning it was sending messages to the carriers who then booked it into their system manually and liasing back with the customer until it was automated a tad more after a month or so.

As for the individual carriers www booking engines, it depends on the technology they have driving it or what is behind the front end as well as what they actually want to do to it. From the few I've seen or used, it seems like most nonserved pairings by that carrier throw back a Star connection at you if practical. UA's doesn't apparently - an acquaintance based in the USA is always moaning that it throws back weird carrier choices at him for his European travels, when he's looking & booking via ual.com. It shows connections onto non-Star carriers in some cases, so it must be driven by Apollo/Galileo that shows the quickest or logical connections regardless of connecting carrier. There must be a way to do it, as I remember AN's system being rejigged to always offering * flights first, even if connecting, over any other non-aligned carriers, including the oal non stops.

[This message has been edited by Al B (edited 07-03-2003).]