http://www.freep.com/article/20090809/COL21/908090316

Q: Right now, travelers can still buy a Northwest ticket well into next year. What happens when the Northwest brand goes away, say, in February, and all the flights suddenly become Delta?

A: We are trying to make the process seamless for customers. Most flights will stay the same. You mostly likely will be able to use the same reservations.

What this says to me is one day the frequent-flyer programs will combine, and even all-new 012 reservations will go away (meaning only 006?), yet 012 will be around for 300+ more days, as the 012 reservation queue is cleared out.

The rules still appears to apply... for best customer service experience, buy the 006/012 ticket for the metal you fly, and watch out for mixed-metal flights. If possible, try to gauge when 006 will take over, and buy only 006 ticket for after that date. The fewer 012 tickets that remain, the fewer reps that will be able to handle ir-ops for 012, and the harder it will be for those impacted.

As soon as 012 new-sales go away, the thread-of-the-day will be "noone knows how to handle an 012 ticket!". I can see a day when they pull the hardware and data lines from the smallest out-stations, and all changes have to be done over the phone by the 006 agent.

You will not be able to purchase a ticket on 012 stock after inventory cutover (when the reservations systems are fully merged). This is currently planned for very early Q1 2010. It has nothing to do with the loyalty programs.

There will of course be existing "012" reservations floating "out there" for some time after inventory cutover, but they will be able to be fully handled by reservations agents and agents at the airport.

What is going to happen with NW ecerts /vouchers etc.? I sure hope they don't become unusable, that would be very sad.

Right now I've got ecredits on DL and various types of ecerts from NW/KLM and no way to use them together on the same reservation as far as I know.

For that matter, will 012 ticketholders be able to make changes to their tickets after new inventory disppears? Perhaps there will be an option to convert the ticket to DL stock?

As someone who obtained two NW vouchers recently, I would hope they wouldn't do this (given that now is not the time for them to begin annoying customers). The vouchers specifically say they are valid one year from issue.

At worst, if they must eliminate 012 stock, I would expect them to be reissued on 006 stock, which, while inconvenient, would be okay.

I agree with everything you said, including intergration... except "fully". The the traveller, fully intergrated outstations check-ins would have a DL Red Elite line. Fully, to 012 and WP, is a fluid term.

012 is the red-headed step-child, and will always have some challenges in ir-ops, and in the smaller stations. I'd still recommend that someone buy 006 stock, if they are flying after the 006 back-end reservations merging date. Flying on the stock of the operating carrier is still strongly recommended.

I do nto have issues iwth 012 & 006 and irrops etc. My issues is a receipt. Recently I have been flying BNA MSP BIS. It is a NWA flight on 006. To get a receipt, I go to the NWA counter have them print a seperate sheet with the Delta res/confirmation # and then have a Delta agent or someone in the CRC print my receipt.

sorry I have to agree with SchmutzigMSP here

ever since code share flights were introduced whenever the operating airline needed to reissue it was reissued in their ticket stock...never been a problem yet so I dont understand why it would be a problem down the road (and just to really make my point I've had 012 ticket stock for a DL op flight pushed to CO because the "FA's were late" then misconnected in CLE...so I had 012, 006 and 005 all in the same record...and this was BEFORE the merger)

Actually in RES it really makes NO difference what tkt stock you are on....Since the introduction of Interline etkt agreements, I can reissue ANY tkt whether it AA (001) or DL 006...It's all the same to me....The issue is why would I take the time to look up AA's fare rules to change their tkt? When My company is not getting the Revenue....NW and DL fare rules are being aligned and that is mostly completed with a few exceptions....(Same day confirmed etc), but that will resolve itself soon...So, my point is....It really doesnt matter which tkt stock....After there is a sgl op Cert then everything from that point forward will be on 006...Vouchers will work on both AL and life will basically be unchanged....

In RES, of course. But in OPS, not so much. I have no faith that 012 tickets can be handled properly by DL ops staff. They are 'training' now, but you should see what happens at the gate when an DL GA tries to deal with an 012 ticket. It's almost comical, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. It's already August, and they only have 4-5 months to get everyone up to full 012 speed. Not likely. It will be a zoo for those unlucky enough to be traveling on an 012 ticket that encounter IRROPS.

+1. This was about what I was going to post.

The intent is one thing. What happens, at the counter, or during ir-ops, is another. The apocolypse isn't coming, yet I'm sure we'll see another round equivalent to the "EUA upgrades across operating carriers" thing.

Well, at the moment I'm wondering more about the NW ecerts and the DL ecredits (and KL credits as well), because as far as I can tell right now (see post above) there's no way to use them with each other's booking systems, except I saw someone post that it was possible to mail in the KLM credits to NW and get them converted, so I may try that.

Just hope this part of the transition process goes smoothly, since I've got several of these to try to use up over the months to come.

Standard Policy allows KLM Paper certs to be mailed in for tktng....We just conver the Euro's to $$ and issue the tkts....

NW ecerts and DL ecredits need to be redeemed with the respective AL websites or Res agents

Your eCerts/eCredits will be preserved. Among the many, many integration projects that are currently underway, one involves making sure that eCerts/eCredits/eCoupons, gift certificates, et al. will be preserved after NW's systems are turned off.

If you want to use these devices in the meantime, you will have to use redeem them on the airline for which they were originally intended.

ResSalesGuy, SchmutzigMSP

Thanks for the feedback - this is what I thought is / would be the case, but didn't know for sure; so it's good to get some direct feedback on the plan for this issue. I understand the enormity of the integration tasks. I guess there may at some point be a way to use credits from both airlines system on the same ticket, but sounds like that could take many more months to achieve.