Expanded code shares to India
 

http://biz.yahoo.com/cnw/051012/e_ai...indi.html?.v=1

"Air Canada today announced that effective October 30, 2005, it is expanding service to India with the launch of daily codeshare flights to Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay. Flights will be operated by the carrier's future Star Alliance partner SWISS via Zurich. The same day, Air Canada will introduce its own daily flights from Toronto to Delhi via Zurich, on which SWISS will sell seats on a codeshare basis. Tickets for these flights are now available for purchase.
The growth of Air Canada's network to India via Switzerland will allow the carrier to re-introduce year-round service to Zurich from Toronto while improving its schedule to Delhi with an increase to daily flights, replacing its current three-times weekly non-stop service from Toronto. In addition, Air Canada will offer daily flights from Montreal to Zurich on a codeshare basis, operated by SWISS."

does this mean that soon for flights between FCO and YUL aircanda.com will stop showing FCO-YYZ-YUL and replace it with FCO-ZHR-YUL (which takes much less time)?

Any idea whether I could book on one of these ZRH to India flights but with an AC flight # so I can use an u/g cert?

As a gut feel I would guess not - only if my journey started in Canada could I get it as an AC flight. Still I can hope :)

We can"t upgrade with AC on code share flights????? UNLESS its an AC plane. Or at least none that I know of.

Thanks - I appreciate the reminder for the AC code share on Swiss metal - my thought was also on the one AC plane that is to DEL via ZRH, with Swiss then code-sharing on the a/c metal.

Last time I've flown FCO-YYZ it was not very full, in fact I would not be surprised to see a FCO-MXP-YYZ insted. With YYZ-ZRH being the feeder for DEL, I think it should be in near full capacity.

I would think that you could buy ZRH/DEL on AC and then your U/G would be allowed. BUT, you should check first, to be sure, before you book.
This view from KVS shows it is possible


[KVS Availability Tool - Sabre: ITN/AXP]

OT but I'm still having a hard time with the loss of the direct flight, although I'll enjoy it one last time on the Oct-17th. After this trip it will be LH via FRA enroute to YYZ.

PJB

The flight after Nov 1st will still be direct.

You're right, sorry I meant non-stop.

PJB

Yes, we do sell just the AC operated ZRH/DEL segment so you could purchase just that segment and UG as per the rules on the certs. You don't have to originate in Canada.

AC.com isn't pulling it up:

We are unable to find recommendations for your search. Please change your search criteria and try again. (66002 - 10900)

I would've thought these would have to be married segments, like the BD codeshares within the UK, which, AFAIK, can't be booked as stand alone but rather only inconjunction with transat AC.

Such codeshares that cannot be booked on their own, typically have a designator of "G/ QUALIFIED ONLINE CONNECTING TRAFFIC ONLY" in Amadeus FLIFO.

The AC878 flight (on 12NOV2005) has no such designator. However, it has a designator of "TFC SUBJ GOVT APPROVAL", but it only applies to YYZ-ZRH & YYZ-DEL portions, not ZRH-DEL.

(To see this in KVS Availability Tool, one can double-click a segment and select [Segment Info]).

Thanks for your help everyone. Nice to know it seems I have the AC option from ZRH, will probably be going to India pre-Xmas.

Looks like I'll have to book via the call centre.

Use search by schedule and the flights will come up. Am looking into why the flights don't show up when searching by fare.