bmchris

I have 2 questions, 1 specific to AA, and 1 more general across more airlines.

I was traveling from TSA-HND-SFO-DFW, with TSA-HND and HND-SFO on JAL, and SFO-DFW on AA. Checked in at TSA, with boarding passes all the way through by JAL, seats issued etc.

When I hit the Admiral's Club at SFO, the agent said let me reprint those boarding passes. And she reprinted them on AA stock. But as far as I could tell, all was the same (apart from TSA precheck), between the JAL ones and AA. Why would they need to be reprinted? Seemed to be extra effort and work.

Generally speaking, I've had a few times where boarding passes came out, or something like that from the machine, and the agent just tore them up and immediately reprinted them. Without entering anything else. It seems to be some error the first printing around. Any ideas why that would be the case?

chrisny2

Over the years, I've found that occasionally some airline employees like the boarding pass to be on their own stock. A few weeks ago, Finnair at ORD reprinted at the gate (without me asking) (from an AA bp) when I stopped up for passport check. I remember LH doing it sometimes too over the years.

OskiBear

Up until recently, this seemed to be standard. I'd check in for an international flight and boarding passes for all legs of the journey would print out. However, when I get to the subsequent leg of the journey, the operating carrier always seemed to like printing out the boarding pass on their paper stock.

I got so used to this, I just assumed it was the practice. Recently, I've traveled where the subsequent operating carrier allowed me to board with the existing pass.

SeeBuyFly

Some airlines don't care who printed the bp, some do.

neo_781

I think back in the day sometimes the reason was that other carrier's BP wouldn't scan in the second airlines gate reader so the agents would reprint the BP. In today's world that is less frequent so I find agents don't reprint as much anymore. However, old habits die hard and so I'm sure some agents just reprint out of habit when they are looking up your reservation and to also avoid potential down line issues even though rare.

aschuett

I would bet they don't need to be, but they want consistency to make things easier for gate agents, etc. I recently had AA stock on a JL flight. When the gate agents at NRT walked the line to check tickets, it was like they were looking at a document from a foreign land. No issues, it just took them an extra 30 seconds to try and locate the information they needed.

Dave Noble

On some routes, for AA it may matter since , iirc, other airline issued passes may not have information such as SSSS or DOCS OK printed on them

Most airlines , ime, don't care which airline prints the boarding pass and I have used Qantas issued boarding passes on AA domestic flights with no issue

QueenOfCoach

Sometimes the existing boarding pass is crumpled up and they reprint just to get a fresh machine-readable document.

ThreeJulietTango

In this case, it sounds like your BP was reprinted so you could get TSA Pre✓ showing up, though I suppose the utility of that is questionable if you're already through security.

^ There have been issues recently with LATAM boarding passes failing to scan. Reprinting seems like a good practice to preemptive my avoid any problems that might be caused by the OA boarding pass.

RWY02KTM

The common reason is that the barcode may not work across all airlines, so rather then keep knowledge of the 'exceptions', agents will just print new ones. Personally, I think it would work across JV partners like AA and JL and BA, but if it was a another airline issued BP, it may not work.

I actually like the agents printing new BP, as it means they look at the res, and identify any issues - specially checked-in baggage related.

flyalways

I also make sure I print AA pass because of TSA Pre-check. That saves lot of time !

SJOGuy

I recently flew TGZ-MEX-DFW-MSN. (TGZ = Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico) TGZ-MEX was an AA codeshare with the Mexican airline Interjet. They dutifully issued all my boarding passes at TGZ, but the passes looked for all the world like cash register receipts from Walgreens. I could see TSA at DFW saying "Huh? What is this?" I asked the AC at MEX to reprint my onward passes.

ESpen36

In my experience, many airlines prefer to reissue boarding passes on their own ticket stock when you are connecting from another airline. No big deal. As noted, it can be helpful to have a boarding pass that resembles what local security personnel are most accustomed to seeing, instead of a "weird" one issued overseas many hours earlier.

A notable exception appears to be CX. They really do not like to reissue boarding passes, and it seems to be a big deal to ask them to do so. I was once connecting from AA to CX and wanted my boarding pass to be issued on CX stock (as a keepsake....it was my first CX First flight). The agent initially didn't want to do it, saying my original AA-issued BP would work just fine to board my flight. When I was politely persistent, she typed and typed and finally it worked. But she gave me the argument that a boarding pass is a "secure document" and they are really not supposed reissue them without good reason. Go figure! AA has no problem reissuing as many as you want! In fact, sometimes the club agents will print you one without asking if you show up and scan your phone app to enter the club.

nutwpinut

I had the same thought about 2 months ago. I just figured it made AA personnel more comfortable.

In the last 2 months I have traveled to Asia and my return trips started on a JL flight with all my boarding passes printed through to my home base. 3 of those times I visited the AA lounge and my tickets were reprinted to AA stock. One time, I was not able to make it to an AA lounge and used the JL stock boarding passes. I had no trouble boarding my next 2 AA flights with JL stock boarding passes.

I too think it is a waste of paper reprinting and I like keeping the JL boarding passes. It makes it easier to explain why I am able to enter the AA lounge.

ThreeJulietTango

I had a similar experience the first time I saw an Interjet boarding pass. Reminds of flying Spirit a few years ago when their boarding passes printed similarly and passengers would accidentally throw them away not realizing that they were actually important documents.

The TAM boarding passes are atrocious, too.