Arrived at JNB (note, now it's often called by its political name ORT for O R Tambo by locals) to check in for first legs of AONE4 to learn that our BA flight to LHR was canceled. And since we were flying AA code-share, the BA agent said we'd have to sort it out with them.

I did my best very-inconvenienced-customer bit, and then tried 'it's an xONEx ticket, so I'm allowed to change the carrier free and hereby request BA ticketing' which may or may not apply to the very first segment, and might have exposed me to the BA charges I was seeking to avoid. For whatever reason, after a couple of phone calls and consultation with another (probably senior) agent it got sorted painlessly except that we ended up on the later flight instead of the earlier (of three originally scheduled).

Not obvious that anyone from BA or AA tried to contact us ahead of time. 3 pax with phones and emails on record with both carriers, someone might have given us a whisper, but maybe its an AOG situation and they had just found out themselves.

Not sure what this means to anyone but little else is going on here...