why is it that after all these years and all the hype about oneworld integration you still can't book all the oneworld flights on one website? CX calls itself the leading e-ticketing airline in asia and still offers only CX flights for sale on its website (codeshares notwithstanding), same for BA, QF, IB. Only AA has limited access to all other oneworld (and non-oneworld flights). By comparision, most starworld carriers allow you to book any *A flight on any website.

What's keeping oneworld back? Investment in modern IT? computer systems? regulations? what?

However, OW is principally a marketing alliance, with a few benefits such as interlining of baggage and reciprocal use of lounges thrown in.

I agree with you, a one-stop shop for bookings would be more user friendly but if the OW timetable can't even provide reliable information for all of the carriers which are part of the alliance, there's very little hope for this...

I would imagine that members working from a position of dominance in their home territories (can't think of a single OW member exception here) would probably not take too kindly to the idea.

If you use the BA web site for more than a few minutes you'll realise that they can't even handle their own flights efficiently, never mind the rest of OneWorld. Just try buying a BA ticket for a journey starting in a country other than where you're resident; you can't pay for it with a credit card other than one that's registered in the destination country.

I'm just finishing a AONE in Gibraltar and wanted to purchase a cheapo one-way GIB-LGW. I could find it on the web site by logging on as from Gibraltar, but had to use the ever-reliable Henry Casciaro of Bland Travel to issue and send me the ticket. Argh!

The explanation is a bit more complex than you think, and is exactly why the 'alliances' are well, nice marketing. Need to have a bit of a background in the GDS business to understand why.

The GDSes (Sabre, Amadeus, Worldspan, and Galileo) act as middlemen for bookings. Grossly oversimplified, if you're a customer or an airline you can check/upload availability of flights and classes and book them.

Each airline, however, has their own internal reservations system that handles things like boarding passes, checkin, baggage tracking, and (sometimes) seating. People often confuse the two, since Sabre and Amadeus do that as a smaller part of their business along with EDS.

Here's where the problem arises.

For internal stuff, AA uses Sabre (left over from the days when AA owned Sabre). BA signed a HUGE contract with Amadeus to develop their own, cheaper system. LA I think uses Sabre. Can't recall what QF and CX uses. Guess what. The internal systems don't talk to each other.

So...basically, cross your fingers and hope that the BA-Amadeus internal system project works out. If it does, pretty much every airline will be adopting it as Sabre really isn't spending a lot of time dealing with new internal rez development. Then...you might have everything talk to each other and get a true oneworld (and for that matter, other alliances) system. Until then...at least you have an explanation. Cheers.

CX uses Cupid.

QF-Amadeus

AY-Amadeus

Which uses a SABRE platform and was created by SABRE and SITA.

How come CX's record locators always start with H or J and are 5 letter/digits (eg. H1JMQ)? (Does Air India use the same type of system CX uses as the format of their record locators seem to look similar).

Sabre always uses 6 letter record locator with no numbers (eg. ABCDEF).

thanks for all the insight. 2 more queries if you don't mind:

a) why does it work on *A websites like LH, UA, OS, SQ (u can even book non-*A flights)

b) what will happen when Swiss joins -- what do they use? Any revolutionary developments to be expected then?

Hmmm, why does what work on the *A platforms?

No revolution for when Suisse joins up...IMHO I think you'll really have to wait for the big bird (AA) before anything happens...

Oh, sorry, didn't reread your original post about *A carriers allowing bookings on each individual site. I'm not sure which front end most of them use - never got into that discussion with the good people at Amadeus...