Jainzar

A long-lasting issue: Unable to book seats on codeshare flights

Ed Size

I found this later on, FT search did not help but Google leads me there THX

SuloL

Try calling in. Seat selection on AY-coded CX metal has worked for me recently. The agent's default answer might be "cannot", but push a little bit, they should be able to do it.

FlyingFinn

Calling whom? AY or CX?

deissi

AY. They were able to do it for AY and CX coded CX flights earlier this year. Just check the confirmation when you get it - one of the four seating assignments did not stick for me and they had to redo it when I called back.

florens

florens

A quick follow up. This is the answer I got when I complained about the lack of basic functionalities on codeshare flights:

ffay005

Poor Janica, she must've slept through her English lessons at Kajaani upper secondary.

Ed Size

Could make a reservation on the CX flights by calling AY, but they just took any two seats (did t ask for preferences) anyhow, had to call a second time to get me out of that middle seat.

florens

florens

And it's still not solved..



BA coded AY flights

Chat CS response:

"Because all additional services are provided by operating carrier. If you have a ticket from another airlines, it is not possible to book additional services, it is international policy between the airlines. Your ticket has to be issued by the same airline that operates the flight in order to be able to use all additional services"

esledo

nyc10036

Seriously, I'd love to find out what's going on with AY that they seem to have become so stingy about assigning seats on codeshare flights! This doesn't seem very resource-intensive for the airlines and the protocol is simple enough to be disseminated to the entire CS team to avoid inconsistencies, so I really don't get this.

My current situation
As OWE/AA EXP, I've been flying AY frequently for work on paid J tickets to Asia and Europe for the last 5 years, and I never had any trouble w/ seat assignments for years. But I have recently been facing more and more resistance from AY agents when requesting seat assignments on codeshares!

I currently have two (separate) upcoming trips w/ AY-marketed tickets which incl JL codeshare legs and, for one of them, it took me maybe three attempts to reach an AY agent that gave me seat assignments.

Now, it's been a different story for my 2nd trip, again, w/ JL codeshare legs, the same fair basis, etc., and AY ABSOLUTELY REFUSED to assign seats! I've gone through maybe a dozen back and forth on the phone, Twitter, chat, etc. hoping that I'd eventually get a competent/helpful agent, but here is their most recent reply I got on Twitter:
Hi, Unfortunately we can't assign seats to flights, which are operated by other airlines. it is always handled by the airline who operates the flight."

Since she sounded so convincing and this would actually be enough of an inconvenience for me to switch to another carrier, I called AY to confirm their new policy. Guess what, it took the agent 2 minutes to get me the seats I wanted and I even got a confirmation email.

My conclusions
Therefore, here is the DEFINITIVE answer, in my perspective, as of December 5, 2018 regarding getting seats assigned on AY-marketed-JL-operated flights :

• AY agents CAN assign seats on AY-ticketed codeshares operated by other OW carriers, incl JL; but
• More and more agents seem either unfamiliar with the protocol and/or unwilling to help.

Again, there must be a reason why they aren't being very helpful beyond that it might require some technical skills on the agents' part. It's puzzling because they used to be more accommodating w/ seat assignments before and, perhaps more importantly, I don't have these issues w/ other OW codeshare arrangements as long as they aren't AY-marketed.

ffay005

At our corner of the table at the AY Kitchen meeting, we discussed this among other things. There seemed to be a consensus that it is indeed possible to assign these seats, and that some have had luck with OTAs, others with AY, and that you need to call several times. It's really annoying and it's a big let-down that AY hasn't done anything about this. It's been going on for far too long now.

on22cz