Flight Diary
 

Hey there,

Not sure if this is the right thread to ask this question, but I'll write it and someone can direct me to the right place.

I recently started putting my travel down on FlightDiary.net. I tend to fly a lot of regional flights, especially on United. I have two options to put down in the airline field. The marketing carrier, United, or the operating carrier, SkyWest or ExpressJet. What do other people do?

Whatever you care about. I typically put the mainline operating carrier. In the scenario you describe that would be United. If I was on a UA codeshare operated by Lufthansa Cityline I'd just do Lufthansa, even though the flight is marketed by United and operated by Cityline.

I also just put United for all express flights, it keeps my airline count true, dont count US regionals as separate carriers.

If its like LHCityline or Lufthansa (both LH) - I just use that.

When its a different carrier like Air India Express (IX) vs Air India (AI), I put down the different IATA code.

AN interesting example given the prior statements about regional carriers. Is IX not just that for AI? Do you buy a ticket directly from IX separately from AI or is it sold/marketed by AI?

IX and AI are entirely separate airlines.

They have separate management, separate AOCs, do not codeshare, do not interline and in fact compete head-to-head in many markets.

You cannot buy AI tickets via IX and you cannot buy IX tickets via AI. Air India's regional affiliate is "Alliance Air" (CD) which operates under the brand "Air India Regional"

Exactly.

The flights are IX coded, bought from IX.

I do not buy tickets from Air Wisconsin or Republic for US domestic flights

Then this makes sense. Nicely confusing names there. :o

They have common shareholding (Government of India) and technically I believe the structure is such that IX is a subsidiary of AI (the official name of IX is "Air India Charters Limited dba Air India Express"). They also share some common training facilities. But they operate as entirely separate entities.