Originally Posted by
SPN Lifer
I was a Reservations Sales Representative (RSR) at UA SFORR from 1985-87.
In general, beyond the itinerary, ticketing, and fare information, etc., there are at least four special fields:
...
The "Remarks" section is the free-form text field, readable only by humans.
At UA, when one Passenger Name Record (PNR) was "linked" to another, this entry was always the first line in the Remarks field of both / all PNRs.
REM / TCP2 *XXXXXX
TCP2 = To Complete Party of 2
TCP3 = To Complete Party of 3
TCP4 = To Complete Party of 4, etc.
(Where the party size is the total number of pax in both / all PNRs and XXXXXX is the PNR Record Locator of the other(s) — with all listed if more than just two.)
As pointed out, this can be easily missed during IRROPS or hectic boarding upgrade situations because, while UA mandates this "link" (reference notation) be at the top of the REM field, the Remarks are buried at the bottom of the PNR. Thus, the "link" is often overlooked.
Wow, thanks for the specific info! I'm guessing that one major change since 1987 is a lot of the process (upgrades, irrops rebooking) is now done by a computer, so it's not so much the agent not seeing it because it's at the bottom, but that the computer that is doing the irrops rebooking or whatever is ignoring the REM field entirely. It would be cool if those programs scanned the REM field for "TCP2" etc. and understood the link, the same way a human agent would. Doesn't seem $100m hard.