Originally Posted by
NZbutterfly
There are passenger baggage cargo interline agreements which are more extensive than the usual alliance and co-op partners. So they can actually have your bags tagged through on separate tickets. I flew Air NZ to Singapore then Qatar onwards. After I sent my baggage through I got talking to one of the agents and they were like.... yeah we could have tagged your bags through SIN and onto QR so I didn't need to pick it up in SIN. Would have been nice but not a big deal as they had some 24hr check in at SIN for a bunch of airlines and I'd left loads of time between flights.
Originally Posted by
sonyxperiageek
What does interline mean?
My understanding is that it is a bit more subtle than how
NZbutterfly describes.
IATA defines ’interline’ as follows:
Interline is the term used to describe a relationship between airlines where one airlines sells the services provided by another airline to service to a customer. Airlines use interline to serve markets they are unable to serve alone.”
IATA Reference
A key point is that just because carrier X and carrier Y have an interline agreement, doesn’t mean all aspects are ‘enabled’. Most commonly, in cases of a single journey on multiple carriers the marketing carrier will utilise interline agreements to ensure the customer’s luggage is managed throughout the journey, with the marketing carrier effectively sub-contracting the services it cannot meet itself - including responsibilities for sorting things out when they go wrong.
In the case of a customer holding separate tickets (say carrier X AAA-BBB, then carrier Y BBB-CCC), then the presence of an interline agreement between X and Y (for baggage handling) is less relevant/binding as the customer has two, seperate journeys with each of the carriers concerned. Indeed, carrier Y expects the customer to originate from BBB and not AAA. And why would carrier X want responsibility for luggage transfer to carrier Y when the customer is not even buying sector BBB-CC from them?
Some carriers are, however, quite generous and will interline luggage on separate tickets. But our own AirNZ will typically refuse to interline to itself on separate NZ tickets!