Super Larry

I've been looking at booking a flight next summer from YUL to RHO using points. I'vbe asked that question on the *A forum, so I won't duplicate it.

However, I did a search on A3 website for a flight from ATH to RHO and all flights were listed under a OA flight number, even flights from A3!

That leads me to ask a very simple question...does A3 tries to limit seat availabilities under their own inventory, hence putting all their seats under OA inventory and therefore making seats completely unavailable for rewards under A3 inventory?

NWIFlyer

The belief is that A3 is trying to move all domestics to OA to differentiate the brands. This isn't, as far as anyone knows, an attempt to restrict award availability - in fact, I'd say overall it's a disadvantage to A3 on many routes because they'd be happy to collect the revenue from a partner FFP.

As it stands, there's not enough OA aircraft to do this, hence why you see 'Operated by Aegean' still, but this should be regarded effectively as a wet lease.

Xandrios

Another detail is that, when the domestic leg is booked together with an international one, it will automatically get Aegean flight numbers.

If we are talking complot theories - one difference is that with OA flight numbers one cannot access any lounge in ATH besides the Aegean one. That will save OA/A3 about 20 euro as their own lounge will most probably have much lower costs. And as such it is understandable - many domestic flights can be booked from about 25 euro all in!

SPlDER

Maybe they will save 20 eur for lounge, but lose to customer. It is useful only for A3 elites. All others *A elites will be avoid such flights.

Xiaotung

This all starts to make sense. When Juneyao Airlines was announced a few weeks ago as the first Connecting Partner Model carrier, OA was mentioned to become a future connecting partner. So it would seem clear that maybe in the future we won't get Star benefits unless connecting from/to an international flight.

LTN Phobia

For domestic flights though, it probably won't make much difference because of rather limited competition.

Besides a lot of travellers are not particularly concerned about lounge access.

It can also work the other way round. As I fly OA quite a bit, I signed up with A3 rather than sticking with LH. Since I only tend to fly J or F, the cost to A3 for my lounge access etc. is quite minimal but I credit other Star flights to A3 so they receive some money for miles from other Star airlines. So in this case having OA flight numbers actually gained A3 some revenue, I believe. If it weren't for OA flights I'd probably have stuck to LH because it's just 'easy' not to change things.

Knobbgb

...and of course other non-A3 *G cannot access a lounge at all because it's not on *A metal. Even though it is.

Palal

Similar setup to Lufthansa+Germanwings/Eurowings

NWIFlyer

Plus SQ & TG with their domestic/regional subsidiaries. Very common across the alliance now, although LH might be argued to be the leading exponent given they operate Germanwings/Eurowings between capital cities such as London & Berlin.

Xandrios

The impact for OA/A3 flyers is much less anyway as most of the island do not offer any lounge services for example. And many of these 25-euro fares even include 1PC luggage.

Eurowings however, like you said, fly between major cities that not only have lounges - these flights are often much longer than a short island-hop with Olympic. So having a bite to eat before/during the flight is much more important there.

Knobbgb

But those flights ARE actually operated by Eurowings or other subsiduaries (even if Lufthansa do own them). If LH were flying these routes with their own aircraft and with the same level of service as mainline but then saying "No, upi can't have benefits because it's Eurowings really, but we loan them the aircraft and the crew" then that would be different, no?

NWIFlyer

That's probably semantics given LH has an enormous fleet so can afford to transfer aircraft into Eurowings, whereas A3 needs to employ a more streamlined fleet utilisation. Because A3 & OA still operate licences, technically the flight has be declared as 'Operated by' but the reality is that it's an OA flight in all but what is painted on the outside of the plane.

livious

I made this same point 1 year back and appreciate the OP creating the thread. I have given up with the hope that a flight with an A3 flight number and operated on A3 metal will credit to any *A FFP. I am amazed that each booking I have made initially shows an A3 flight number for the domestic segement yet each boarding pass ends up as an OA flight. While the segments/miles is a minor problem, *A baggage privileges (especially for HBO fares) can be a problem on a family vacation...especially when using the upgrade coupons on one segment (i.e. upgrading EU-ATH, economy domestic in Greece). Granted this gripe will lessen as PUT fares cannot be upgraded in the future, but it has been a problem in the past.

I look forward to Aegean bringing OA completely into the fold and eliminating the guessing game. I enjoy flying Aegean and will continue to fly them, but the advantage of using OA as suits them best has become an annoyance.

winkny

If the flight is OA then they don't have to give free baggage , lounge access and miles to *A Gold members, maybe this is one of the factors for these OA flights.
So i don't think they will remove them.
Keep in mind that big part of the traffic from all over the world to the Greek islands go through Aegean.

Golifly

I believe it is just a branding/ease of operations issue. Too bad, it's nice having those perks even if it's just for a short domestic flight.