petteriusa

Yes, sorry typo. It's the AY LHR HEL flight on the 350.

Keter

Yes I fully agree with you! However, there is one more issue here. I think there are 2 main reasons why airlines want to move to a single PNR:

2) Accuracy of the information (maybe some old couple sued some airlines for not providing accurate information in operating bookings) Unfortunately this could happen and could cost.
1) Cost saving,

Amadeus sucks when it comes to seat selection on codeshare flights, and we all seem to know this now... I guess what complicates things is the that most airlines have this services as paid now and even for elite flyers you still have provide some excuse which required IT developments. Storing seat maps in Amadeus is an extra cost too, maybe the airlines try to avoid to pay the bill for codeshares and want operating airlines to handle that.

Similar discussion is here: KL Marketed, GA Operated: No way to do seat selection?

Now, the technical part is that Amadeus has a command to select seats when seat map is not available (or when there is no contract rather with Amadeus to store seatmaps). It is very simple and called 'seat wish'. Here is the documentation from Amadeus:

https://servicehub.amadeus.com/c/por...ke-a-seat-wish

And now comes another weird thing. I had a talk with AF agents recently to select setas on AF operated flight marketed by another airline. They... confirmed this option exists, they know about it, however, they refused to use that. She contacted her supervisor, and came back with usual 'seat selection is available during online checkin'. What pissed me off is also that she told AF is not required to explain how they do their business.... That was not said rude, but i felt it was.. I will use any opportunity to piss off AF on mistake fares for this.

Anyone who calls next can try this with AY, AF, BA etc.
This is a free command in Amadeus (airlines do not charge for this) but Amadeus may charge airlines for its use, this could be the reason for the rude answer.

Please your feedback here!

jms_uk

Phoned them and I've got seats reserved, including the EER on the shorthaul and Eco Comfort on the longhaul segment.

Keter

I have just checked in for AF marketed flight operated by AY, and what i see.... is another Amadeus booking code on the boarding pass (not same as Air France Amadeus code)... Funny enough there is no return flight in that booking, a bit weird, i guess it will be in another booking.

Keter

The ticket was booked last week if this matters re April 2017 when they were supposed to move to single PNR concept.

lkrt

I'm not sure, but might concern different alliances?

Courmisch

It has been like with AF-coded AY, already well before the recent controversial Amadeus changes with Oneworld codeshares.

AFAICT, AF only transfers its passengers list to AY at the last minute. (Somebody could probably get a good idea when exactly that happens by comparing the AY PNR with other Amadeus PNR). Because the AY PNR simply does not exist earlier, you can't reserve any EMB.

Keter

Right, this could be the reason. I forgot that AF prefers to handle their codeshares via fixed block agreements.

petteriusa

Well finished the trip. I did stop by the special services desk at HEL to see what they could say at the mothership. The woman at the desk was very friendly and did try to assist, but in the end was not able to assign the seat, at least in Economy Comfort for my return AY007. So it's definitely a technical limitation, possibly backed up by policy to try and route people to booking directly with them.

I made sure to check in exactly at the 24hr mark and grabbed what looked like the last window seat in the economy comfort so that worked at least. Still disappointing that this is an issue. I would have been more than upset with a middle seat on this flight an 11 hour saga.

Looking forward to hearing more info on this as others book code share itineraries.

Keter

The Amadeus requests I posted above shall be able to overcome those. And I look for feedback as i cant test this myself.

ffay005

Has anyone asked an AY agent to try this? It sounds great, and I'd like to know if it works in practice.

lkrt

I was assigned a seat via the Amadeus command, but it never became confirmed: I never got that seat. It simply does not work right now.

florens

lkrt

Yes, since moving to the single PNR system, almost a year. There have been issues with OW elites choosing seats before, but only at this point choosing a seat altogether became impossible.

Keter

Could you please clarify which command was used and by whom by yourself or agent or AY staff?
Was the seat selected showing taken on the seatmap?

The reports here are not uniform. Some were able to get the seats by calling AY.