Originally Posted by
BER Flyer
Unfortunaly you're wrong here. You are not on a DL flight untill DoD, you are on a KLM flight. And you won't get free Y+ seats because of that, same as with Flying Blue elite members. Now, on DoD the two flights are "merged" and now handled by the Company who runs the flight on that specific airport. NOW you're on a DL flight and now you will access to those seats. I know it sucks, happend to me on more then 50 flights.
A customer doesn't care how a system considers it (and you're not entirely right - there is integration - for example, seat reservations work). It is entirely possible to make things seamless but the airlines choose not to (because of investment required and lack of incentive to do so).