ANC

What Airlines Does AS have Interline Baggage agreements with?

Obviously there are agreements with their partners...who else? Is there an official listing somewhere? Why doesnt AS have it on their website somewhere? It seems rather pertinent if you ask me

ANC RED-EYE

Everyone I've ever tried...among the more random:

South African Airways
go!

I suspect it would be easier to make the list of who they don't have an interline baggage agreement with...

jackal

Interestingly, it seems airlines (at least the relatively major ones) tend to have interline agreements with pretty much every other (relatively major) airline that participates in codesharing agreements and sells flights via GDS systems, even if they're not "partners"--in other words, everyone has agreements with everyone else EXCEPT LCCs like WN that don't interline with anyone and don't sell flights on GDS systems.

So, even though AS and UA are polar opposites when it comes to who they are partnered and allied with, you can still interline your bags and even buy a multi-carrier ticket (generally through a travel agent) involving both airlines.

Donna49

This came up as a problem for me last year, when Icelandair (FI) substantially reduced service from MSP and I had to fly to BOS to connect to my FI flight.

I learned this, and I believe it is still true. Any airline that is a member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) must, as a requiremembership of membership, accept baggage for interline transfer to any other IATA carrier.

Before I did my research, I thought almost all airlines are IATA member airlines. Not so.

Here in SEA, as strange as it might seem, Air Tran, Frontier, Jet Blue, Midwest, Southwest, Sun Country, and Virgin Air are not.

In my own case, I had purchased seperate tickets (SEA-BOS on AS, and BOS-KEF on FI) and it was no problem to check my bag at the counter in SEA all the way through. The agent just needed to see my ticket documentation printout from FI. Worked great.

You can see a list of IATA airlines here:http://www.iata.org/membership/airli..._list?All=true

If you look at this list, you can see that QX is not IATA, so I'm not sure what would happen if you were on them as opposed to mainline AS.

So, to answer your question, Alaska, by being a member of IATA, has interline baggage agreements with all IATA carriers. But there may be other carriers, if a special agreement is in place. You would have to call Alaska about that.

Is there a specific carrier you were looking for?

wsucougarchick05

I would think that QX would be under the AS umbrella for IATA. Carriers such as Skywest, who has contracts with other airlines, aren't on that list either. I would reason to think that if they're operating as a codeshare for an IATA airline, they'd be able to interline as if they were travelling on a mixed-carrier itinerary (i.e. DL/AS, US/UA, etc.).

ANC

I was sorta wondering about AirTran...and I figured not. Im kinda surprised with Midwest though. I have heard though that the first 3 you listed are starting to slowly add some agreement airlines. In a way its just as much to their benefit to interline as it is for the benefit of passengers.

Donna49

That would make sense, but I'm not sure.

In my research, I found out that the IATA membership, in addition to interline baggage, also requires interline ticketing. Just out of curiosity, I tried to book a ticket using QX to connect to FI, but everything comes up with an AS flight number.

Are there any QX flights that are not an AS codeshare?

On interesting result came from GTF-KEF, with the return leg SEA-GTF being on Air France 9664, operated by AS as Alaska 2324, but in fact is QX. With the layering of multiple codehare partners/alliances, it is getting difficult to understand the metal of the carrier you will actually be flying.

Also, just because IATA member airlines offer interline ticketing, very rarely is it the cheapest fare. In my case, buying a SEA-BOS-KEF ticket with the exact same flights as I took, priced out at triple the cost of the SEA-BOS on AS and BOS-KEF on FI tickets I purchased.

wsucougarchick05

Looking at fares in ITA, it shows that QX is indeed codeshared with AS, but if you plug a QX flight (for example, PDX-SEA) on alaskaair.com, it'll come up as a QX flight.

So to answer your question...it depends on where you book. AAG is the parent company and I believe that most travel search engines use the ownership/contract contingencies (i.e. "This flight will be operated as YYY Airlines, operated by ZZZ Airlines" wordage in ITA) to determine the carrier.

COpltASgldPHX

It will only show up that way on AS.com. All QX flights are AS codeshares and show up that way in all of the GDSs. There is no way to actually book a QX flight using the actual QX flight number. The actual QX flight number is the last three digits of the AS flight number. For example AS2244 is actually QX244 even though it displays on the website as QX2244. The three digit flight number is what is used with flight tracking and when the crews call ATC etc.

As for the whole interline baggage/ticketing thing it is not tied to IATA. Although most IATA member airlines do have interline agreements with each other all interline agreements are negotiated by each individual airline. Also it isn't necessary to have an interline ticketing agreement to have an interline baggage agreement.

wsucougarchick05

Thank you. Now that I re-read what I wrote, I confused myself. LOL

Donna49

[QUOTE=COpltASgldPHX;13093479]
As for the whole interline baggage/ticketing thing it is not tied to IATA. Although most IATA member airlines do have interline agreements with each other all interline agreements are negotiated by each individual airline. /QUOTE]

This is not true.

By being a member of IATA, they have to interline with other IATA carriers as a condition of membership. No individual airline agreements, although nothing precludes an airline from doing so. Just being an IATA member airline is a defacto agreement with all IATA airlines.

When my Icelandair connection in BOS problem came up, I called AS res and asked. That agent had to refer me to a supervisor, who had to research it herself. Icelandair is not that big a carrier, and relatively unknown in the SEA area prior to this year. I remember her comment...." Icelandair....let me see....Oh, they are IATA...no problem...".

To answer the OP's question as to who AS has interline baggage agreements with, only Alaska knows. But by being a member of IATA, Alaska MUST interline with other IATA carriers, whether Alaska has an agreement with a specific IATA carrier or not.

I just called AS res to verify the above.

wsucougarchick05

Isn't that what COpltASgldPHX said when they said:

...because I sure read it as such.

COpltASgldPHX

So you are saying that since Cubana and IranAir are both IATA members AS (and other US airlines) must have an interline agreement with them?

Donna49

Exactly.

Is there something about this that is difficult to understand?

By being an IATA member, an airline agrees to conditions of membership such that interlining with another IATA member airline is required.

ITA Hacker

I don't believe that this statement is true. I don't suppose you have a reference for it?

IATA publishes a manual of interline ticketing agreements, called MITA, and a data feed of bilateral interline e-ticketing agreements, the BIETA table: http://www.iata.org/ps/publications/mita.htm. We subscribe to both.

I can say for certain that according to the e-ticketing table, for example, no US airline has interline e-ticketing agreements with Cubana. Actually, the list of interline partners for Cubana is quite short: only 25 of the >200 IATA members are on the list.