Interlining question (check-in; AI to KL to DL)
Newbie question on how ticketing across airlines works. (Apologies if this is the wrong forum - not sure what a better one would be since it involves three different airlines.)
I was booked on a single ticket BLR - DEL - AMS - BOS.
BLR-DEL was on Air India
DEL-AMS was on KLM
AMS-BOS was on Delta
In the past if I've had similar (but not exactly the same) itineraries, when I checked in at the first airport I was usually provided with boarding passes for all legs of the journey.
This time at BLR when checking in with Air India I was given boarding passes for BLR-DEL and DEL-AMS and was told they couldn't give me a boarding pass for AMS-BOS "because that's on Delta, and they're not part of Star Alliance". Strange, since AFAIK KLM isn't part of Star Alliance either? I was further told I'd have to pick up the boarding pass for that leg in Amsterdam from KLM.
Is this just incompetence on the part of the AI agent? Or is there something that actually prevents them from issuing all the boarding passes for a journey like this? I thought interlining didn't have to be restricted by any code-share agreements across the carriers.
In the event, as I had some time at New Delhi I went to the KLM desk there and they readily issued me the boarding pass for AMS-BOS.
By the way, they were quite willing to check my bag all the way through to Boston, so it seems that at least for that the entire journey was in their system. I didn't want to check my bag, which led to an additional problem that my bag weighed a bit more than AI's cabin baggage limit, but was within KLM's limit. Possibly AI were applying their domestic weight limit. Complicating matters somewhat, the flight itself, AI 173, is one of the odd AI flights that carries domestic passengers although it is technically an international flight (BLR - DEL - SFO) with most passengers undergoing immigration and customs clearance at BLR, while those like me who were getting out at DEL got a boarding pass stamped "D" (for domestic, I presume). So I was on the domestic leg of an international flight, not sure which baggage limit should have applied. In the end the agent simply told me to carry my bag on as he wasn't willing to check it only to DEL for me to carry it on from there for the rest of the journey.