Code Share Flights
 

Hey all,

I had an interesting situation happen to me last week. Since I am skywards silver, I am able to check in at the business class area of the Dubai terminal. This alone, can save you over an hour of time as the security is efficient and there are no lines for check in.

Anyway, I arrived at the airport and my ticket says Emirates flight xxxx to Muscat. Everything was going well until I went to check in. Sorry sir, this is an Oman Air flight and you need to check in with them. I asked her, but the ticket says Emirates and no where does it say Oman Air. Mind you at this point I had less than 45 minutes to the flight took off. Basically, they wouldn't let me check in.

However, I made a big fuss and they called Oman air and made them give me a manual ticket. This saved me from missing the flight. Is this the norm? I expect to check in at foreign airports at non-emirates counters, but when in Dubai, can I not check in at the Emirates counters, especially if the ticket has an Emirates flight number.

Billman

This is almost always the case with codeshare flights - you have to check in at the operating airlines check in desk, because they will be handling your baggage and issuing your boarding pass.

However, what is surprising is that the itinerary did not say: "operated by Omar Air. You must check in with Omar Air." It won't say that on the ticket, only on the confirmation sheet. This has always been the case with my tickets.

In Dubai this is not yet the case but in many airports codeshare flights leave from different terminals than the operating airline does. An excellent example is at Heathrow. Air Canada codeshare flights to Zurich leave from Terminal 2 (operated by LX) whereas Air Canada leaves from Terminal 3.

Cheers