I recently booked an award ticket (using TK Miles and Smiles) on an itinerary consisting of an AI segment domestically (BLR -> DEL) in India connecting DEL -> ORD with UA in business class. I've run into some issues with the Air India segment, so wanted to get advice from the experts on this forum.

Essentially, the booking appears to be completely fine in both the TK and UA systems (PNR as well as ticketing status / coupon status, etc.), but the Air India PNR shows up as cancelled in the AI system. What seems to have occurred is that the ticket number was issued, but did not get attached properly in the Air India system, and the reservation was automatically cancelled for not being ticketed within TTL. I've also confirmed the e-ticket coupon status from checking the e-ticket on the Saudia site, and it shows 'Airport Control' for the corresponding e-ticket segment.

Most AI agents just tell me the reservation has no attached ticket number, has been cancelled and to talk to the travel agent (Turkish). I've sometimes reached an Air India agent who is willing to check the status of the e-ticket; when they do, they confirm that everything looks ok with the e-ticket, there is just no attached PNR and that I will have no problem at the airport. But since there is no reservation in the Air India system, I'm concerned that the space is not actually being reserved, and would also be taking a chance on whether the agent at the airport can resolve this.

From what I have read on Flyertalk of similar cases, what needs to be done to 'fix' this issue is create a new PNR in the AI system, force availability in the fare class, and attach the existing e-ticket number to this reservation. There is no longer availability in the original award fare class (I), so I think this will require AI to manually open up availability to re-create the reservation and attach the e-ticket.

What would be the best course of action to resolve this or finding someone at AI with the knowledge and ability to fix this? AI phone agents seem to be clueless, and even if I found a helpful TK agent, I think they would need to coordinate with AI to resolve this, which is unlikely. I will be in India a few weeks prior to this flight and could visit city / airport offices at either BLR or BOM, would they be able to resolve this before the day of departure? Since this flight isn't until October, the other approach I have been considering is attempting a US DOT complaint to AI asking for the mismatch to be fixed. I'm hoping this complaint may be routed to more competent AI staff, but am also concerned in case the complaint causes any further issues / cancelling the entire ticket, since I'd really like to keep the existing itinerary if possible.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

(Note: This issue is unrelated to the AI migration from SITA to Amadeus, this issue existed for the past few months in SITA, and appears to still have no valid reservation after migration to the Amadeus system).

I can understand you're worried about your reservation but I think you're way over thinking things. AI doesn't show my reservation on the their portal plenty of times even when it's a revenue ticket I've bought directly from them!

You could do a couple of things (and you don't have any basis for making a complaint to US DOT):
1. Ask for a supervisor on the phone with AI and take their help to resolve things. This will of course take a lot of time & patience, but if you get a real supervisor on the phone they're quite competent and can actually help you with your problem.
2. If you're going to be in BOM - going to the city office will be an even better way of resolving your query

Don't assume your problem. If you have a valid e-ticket number for your entire itinerary I can't imagine why you're not good to go - whatever the backend PNR issues that TK/UA/AI may have with each other.

AI can do wonders at their city offices so if you have an opportunity to go there before your flight then you have nothing to worry about.

Thanks so much for the suggestions! I will plan to visit a city office before the flight to get this resolved.

Did you visit the city office, how did it go?

THis sounds very similar to a problem that I had with a different set of Star Alliance partners. It didn't turn out well for me but I didn't have the going into city office as an option

​​​​​

Yes, I have visited a few airport and city offices over the last few weeks, but the issue isn't fully resolved yet. The BLR airport ticketing office did recognize the problem and said it would be an issue; but told me to go to the city office to get it fixed since it's an award fare bucket. The Bangalore city office just checked the ticket number, confirmed everything seemed ok, printed a copy of the e-ticket receipt, and said the missing reservation wasn't a problem.

The staff at the Mumbai city office at Nariman Point were the most competent, they quickly understood the issue and reviewed all the e-ticket details and confirmed that there was a mismatch that needed to be resolved. It seems that now there is no longer any PNR record in the new Air India Amadeus system for those flights after migration, since the cancelled PNR from the old system wasn't transferred. They made some calls to the IT / migration departments and said they needed to send the details to those departments to resolve, and it would probably take a week. It's been about 10 days now, I have called to follow up, and they've said they're still working on it. I'm not sure if they will eventually be able to fix it, or if it will still be up to the check-in staff to resolve it.

All the best. If possible pay the BOM team another visit and sit on their heads and ask them to resolve it.