Originally Posted by
fastair
Too much here to correct everything. The concepts are mostly close, but not really accurate, and my interline accounting info is like 8 yrs old.
As for being able to pull another carriers etkt with just the number, most likely not gonna happen. Unless a carrier has pushed it. Of course the plated (1st 3 digits of the ticket number) carrier can access any coupons on that ticket, as well as both the specific marketing and/or operating carrier. DL would not be able to gain access to an AA ticket without AA allowing it, unless DL is either the plated carrier, the operating carrier, or the marketing carrier of that segment. Trying to "pull" it would result (except in relativly rare situations, like irrops, when a carrier may have opened up that ticket to any number of carriers) it a failure. Not just a payment of face calue, but no access at all, so no payment, and ticket would not ever be "used".
Intl tickets have different rules as different conventions govern them. For the sake of making it simple, let's pretent all tickets for this example are paper, not electronic (so a carrier would be able to grab another carrier's coupon without them giving permission.) Any domestic carrier can use any other domestic carriers ticket on a wholly domesticly issued route/ticket without permission (again, we are only using paper for the example, as an electronic ticket would not be accessable to AA if a UA ticket unless UA gave AA a "push") or endorsement. Intl tickets, except in certain alliance situations where they have prior agreement to waive endorsment (or at least the intl legs of intl tickets) REQUIRE an endorsement by either a) the plating carrier of the ticket, b) the operating carrier of that segment, or c) the marketing carrier of that segment.
The "industry standard" has been changed from "pushing" to reissue by the operating/marketing carrier. UA's system is easy to use without a reissue. AA can give me access to their tickets on irrops and I can just use that coupon for a reservation if made by AA, to build a new reservation myself, or to add the passenger standby on a sold out flight. CO's rules are different. Pulling/pushing tickets is not part of their SOP. They require a reissue.
Negotiated rates between carriers are more often used for rerouting a passenger via different connections, writing a FIM, or in the case of a non-published/award fare...places where proration doesn't come into play. Carriers have "special pro-rate agreements" that may facvor certain carriers for charging less, or when they don't exist, can use an IATA determined prorate.
Most tickets now days (if you get one printed you will see it) are handeled thru 1 big "clearing house" (like checks for banks) called "ARC" (Airlines Reporting Corporation) which does the legwork. The carrier that plates the ticket (again 1st 3 digits of ticket number...001 for AA, 016 for UA, 005 for CO) holds the funds. The other carriers that fly the routes issued on that ticket get paid from the plateing carrier's funds (thus the reason the plating carrier can endorsed any coupon in the ticket regardless if they are operating it or not.)
I've seen examples of a FIM that was issued without a proper paper trail of the original ticket take years to be settled. The receiving carrier tried to bill full Y, the issuing carrier rejected it and said it was less..they went back and forth, back and forth arguing over settlement rates. This is why the audit trail of a FIM (a blank check to fly that has no price, but the price is determined by the agreements between carriers and the original ticket price/routing) is important, becuase without reference to the original fare, the settlement cannot be determined. I'm sure that the process has sped up in recent history with more etkts and less papaer and less FIMS than this example (I may push/reissue 1000 tickets/yr to other carriers...write FIMS maybe once a year, and only for special circumstances <FIM=flight interuption manifest>) as carriers exchange tickets in a manner of seconds (much faster than the old methods due to automation) and these exchanges retain the full paper trail.
As for the njcommodore question about checkit and VDBs, I havent seen/used it yet, but the answer is "no". Checkit is an app, not a system, used for pretty much one thing, and that is checking in. There is a VDB app (and many others in production) that I haven't seen/used. These are all bandaids to cover the pain of native SHARES until a system GUI can be properly developed, tested, and distributed.