MarkOK

I was playing around this afternoon investigating options for future travel destinations.

I fly out of tiny stillwater regional airport in OK (SWO), we have 2 flights a day to DFW on American Eagle ticketed flights flown by Envoy.

Quite often, from my window out the tiny ERJ-145 from SWO, we go to a D terminal gate at DFW and taxi around the A380 from Qantas that operates flights QF7 and QF8. I've been thinking that when I go to Australia, I would like to be able to hop on THAT plane. And since, they are code-share One World airlines, I was thinking, no problem, this should work.

A few unexpected issues I found today.

1. Searching for flights on AA.com will bring up some QF flights, but not QF7/QF8. Doesn't seem to matter if I put in any originating airport, it just doesn't come up even after scrolling through 40 flights.

2.Searching for flights on oneworld.com, it won't connect me from SWO-DFW-SYD. It will only connect me SWO-DFW-HKG-SYD (the last flight on Cathay Pacific), or SWO-DFW-JFK-SYD (the JFK-SYD flight on Qantas).
If I put in any other airport including the ones that only get american eagle service (like Manhattan KS, Lawton OK), the first flight flight that pops up is the flight to DFW, and DFW-SYD on QF8. Why is mine the only airport that won't make that connection when I search for it?

3. Again, if you get directed from oneworld.com to AA's page to book the flight (let's say you want to book the Lawton OK-DFW-SYD via the QF8 route), the AA page comes up but doesn't load any flight options with QF7/8, the QF7/8 flights just aren't there. I can scroll down and some QF flights are in there (going to SFO or LAX), but not the one I would want.

4. If I go straight to Qantas.com, they don't have SWO as an airport. They are missing some other small airports as well in their search, and a couple they have (like Manhattan KS) just produces an error if you search for a flight. Others (like Tulsa) will work and show American Eagle TUL-DFW flights as well (so, I don't think being serviced by Envoy is the hangup). Quantas's site, of course, has no problem showing upfront the logical QF7/8 route when you plug in originating cities that work.

5. If I go back to Oneworld.com and plug in SWO-SYD, and pull that mentioned above SWO-DFW-JFK-SYD (the JFK-SYD flight on Quantas), and go to the return flight (which starts with Quantas) to get directed to Quantas's site for that route. It pulls up just fine SWO-SYD flights INCLUDING the logical QF7/8 DFW-SYD route as an option. Great, you would think, except that the flight is $2200 round trip when a direct DFW-SYD flight or any other flight on QF7/8 from the US is only about $1000-1400 round trip. So, I can book my flight on one ticket through this very indirect series of clicks, but my ticket costs twice as much as it 'should' -- and, costs 800$ more per person than booking separate ticketed DFW-SWO flights on AA.com and DFW-SYD flights on Qantas.

I though the purpose of OneWorld was to make this stuff easy, but apparently it doesn't work that way. I wonder if calling the airlines would work somehow (in a way that doesn't just give me the $2200 ticket), but right now I have no plans for booking this trip for at least another year (I was just playing around at work).

Mwenenzi

Point 1: You will not find any flights on Quantas.com. Qantas does not have a u

Due to regulatory issues AA & QF (now) do not have a joint venture
What is the time between the SWO flight arrival and QF leaving?
Have you tried forcing as a multi sector? SWO-DFW and DFW-SYD and not just SWO-SYD
Have you tried phoning QF or AA? Or a real live Travel Agent? (not a web site written by IT programmers)

Onweworld is just a marketing organisation. Other than RTW tickets, does not sell flights
Many OW airlines are in direct competition with each other. And some have different IT/reservations systems that do not talk to each other seamlessly.

jridge

First, if it is a hypothetical trip that you are not planning to make for a year, then what is the point of worrying about all these details? Lots can change.

The whole AA-QF codeshares are confused right now because they are trying to get antitrust immunity for a joint venture, and (IMHO) are playing games. Some codeshares simply don't exist any more, and for others the price may be much higher. This will most likely (again, IMHO) sort itself out in the next year. In the meantime, I find that small airports tend to either not allow a mix of marketed carriers for the initial outbound, or the availability is screwed, or it falls foul of some AA end-on-end ticketing rule which they have tightened up a lot.

Also check the connection time. QF7/8 shifts by 2 hours depending on daylight savings (which starts in Australia this weekend) and this could make the connection completely non-viable at some times of year.

Mwenenzi

Good point. QF7 lands at SYD at ~06:05. Not long after the SYD night curfew. So the times will vary with daylight saving in DFW and SYD

I took that flight last year. You spend a long night is a dark metal tube in the sky. It is one of the longest non stop flights in the world.

The software may be trying to give you a better (shorter or cheaper) flight, based on your departure time from SWO. Flight pricing and connections are not always logical to people (i.e. a non computer)

trooper

Weird! Skyscanner will produce an itin in/out of SWO....BUT it puts you on AA DFW-LAX thgen QF to SYD.... not the direct....

MarkOK

My apologies for the misspelling. I always love the curtness from FlyerTalkers.! ^

This trip right now is indeed 'hypothetical'. Vacation time next year is already booked for us (which ended up being SWO-DFW-LGA, three nights, LGA-CDX 7 nights, CDX-JFK 3 nights, then LGA-DFW-SWO; we wanted to go to Paris, but found that book-ending JFK-CDW in the middle of roundtrip SWO-LGA was $600 cheaper than straight up SWO-CDX bookings, and we would like to visit NYC anyways). What I am doing is bookmarking some appealing options for 2019, trying to get some idea of destinations/costs for a 2 week trip in early June (my preferred time to travel, as the kid is out of school, can be sent to grandma's house, and summer-travel premiums are not quite yet in effect). It's been enlightening thus far on both what combinations of air-routes, fares and hotels seem appealing both in terms of fun, price, and convenience. Wife and I are in our mid 30s, finally have money, time, and career stability for serious travel. We have limited international travel experience, but searching this forum I couldn't find a similar thread to this issue.

So the dates and prices I am looking at is the first full 2 weeks of June 2018 if you want to verify.

The timings are not an issue. QF 8 leaves at 10:15PM. SWO-DFW arrives at 8:05AM and 1:45. Layover is long, but within parameters of the searches.

Return flight QF7 SYD-DFW arrives at 1PM. Last flight of SWO-DFW leaves at 8:45PM. Perfectly fine on that front as well. These are times for those dates in June.

I can't seem to find a pattern that will offer a reasonable explanation on AA.com. I just went back to searching--- If I search SWO-SYD on AA, the first several flights of course want me to do SWO-DFW-LAX-SYD all on AA flights. After that, the flights are all a complicated SWO-DFW-a choice chinese or japanese airports-- (all on AA) and then a QF (or japanese airline) flight to SYD. So, I am thinking, fine -- AA wants to 'own' the overseas flight perhaps if you book on aa.com. Searching direct from DFW-SYD only produces options on AA DFW-LAX-SYD flights, but I wouldn't necessarily expect them to have a 100% non-AA flight anyways, I will let that pass as booking the flight I want on qantas.com DFW-SYD is a cynch. I search a TUL-SYD flights, and of course, there are the 30 first all AA flights, mostly TUL-DFW/ORD/etc-LAX-SYD on AA, but then there ARE INDEED TUL-DFW-SYD flights with QF8 (with three options to go TUL-DFW). So I stand CORRECTED -- AA will bury QF 7/8 but they do indeed exist on AA.com and this shoots down the theory that AA won't show overseas QF flights. So it exist, but it only exists if you start from certain airports (TUL) and not from others (SWO)?? Again ...?. Think they are buried beyond the 40 results in my SWO-SYD searches? -- I don't think so as the flights they are showing are upwards of 51 hours of travel time! Surely, this IT blip is a mistake. Does it exists if I call an agent? I don't know, I kind of assume they don't see much different than what I see when searching for flights. If I was serious about booking this now I would call but I won't waste their time on a hypothetical. My gut tells me they will be able to find the Qantas ticket option I found through the back door for $2200 roundtrip and that is that, simply because of some 'bug' in the system.

I can also accept booking through Qantas these flights if possible, but they are missing part of AA's network in the US on their site, even if it exists somewhere as evidenced through my 'backdoor method' of having Qantas produce flights to SWO only if oneworld.com comes up with it first and directs it. And even through this odd way, I can come up with a Qantas.com flight that does what I want, but why then is it literally $1000 more per roundtrip to fly from my airport vs any other in my region that exists on Qantas's front-door search tool.

It's all a matter of convenience and price. 1000$ by booking on qantas through the back door isn't reasonable for the convenience of leaving from my home airport on a single ticket and flying the route that is the shortest! in terms of travel time. Flying on two different tickets (by booking on qantas and aa separately) means 250$ in extra costs (I can accept that) but then also means spending a couple of hours in Dallas claiming and rechecking luggage and having risks if IRROPs occur. Flying through TUL works in a way, but is $150 more expensive and less convenient as well and hurts a little as I want my tiny airport to succeed and expand someday beyond our limited service. If I was set on this trip, I would book the two different tickets and hope for the best (thinking, that if my Noon SWO departure gets delayed, I have enough time to panic-drive 4 hours to DFW and have enough time to still make the QF flight). It works, these are first world problems, but it makes me lose faith that OneWorld means anything at all if it doesn't act as a real network like their marketing claims it does. It makes me think that EVERY international trip will need 4 hours of pulling tickets/flights on different oneworld airlines with different airport inputs in my region to actually get any idea of what my options really look like, instead of spending 10 minutes of plugging in SWO-Destination on AA and see those options up front.

This is the type of thing that would make me say screw the trip to Australia and do a South American or Thailand trip that can be booked upfront with a sane route.

MarkOK

That is one of the reasons I prefer to experience that particular flight (other than the somewhat rare chance to fly on a A380). Last I checked, it was the 3rd longest nonstop flight now but used to be number 1!

jridge

That was part of AA's reaction to the DoJ denial: most of their lowest US-AU fares now require AA metal i.e. AA72/73 via LAX.

jridge

Perhaps you should fly PER-LHR-DFW on the way back...

jridge

Here are some of the considerations.

1. For AA's cheapest published SWO-SYD fares, as noted above: "THE FARE COMPONENT MUST INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA EACH TRANSPACIFIC SECTOR ON ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING ANY AA FLIGHT OPERATED BY AA."

Conclusion so far: if you want a simple AA-marketed ticket at their cheapest fare, you'll need to go via LAX (or HKG, NRT, etc.).

2. QF does not publish a fare from SWO-SYD. Thus if your ticket is to be sold by QF, you will need to get a separate ticket from SWO-DFW (this is not saying separate PNR, just that it cannot be a single fare).

3. AA's cheapest SWO-DFW fares have the following combination restriction: "END-ON-END COMBINATIONS PERMITTED WITH AA FARES." In other words, they want you to fly AA, not QF.

You can probably get a "real" travel agent to get this ticketed on a single record locator. Or given the connection time you could book two completely separate tickets and get some travel insurance (but still not ideal due to baggage allowances etc.). Or, if I were in your shoes, since it is so far out I would write to QF and ask them to publish a SWO-SYD fare.

Mwenenzi

Following the recent cancellation of the AA QF joint venture the AA IT is working perfectly.
AA cannot be seen to be collaborating with QF, when their valid are AA options.

As you are looking for June 2019 forget about this trip until January 2019.
By 2019 the aviation market will be different to now.
Note June is mid winter in Australia, but winters are not as hard as in many places in USA.

Off topic The Qantas Story (QF history)

TBD

As if FTers don't run searches on every potential future holiday just to see what fun airline/aircraft combinations pop up ....

Kiwi Flyer

Have you tried multi-city (entering DFW as transit point)? The connections at DFW between AA & QF are probably longer than connections via other points, which may be impacting the search results.

MarkOK

Yeah, I suppose that is a thought but an odd/bad one in my opinion. Perhaps they would put a 51.5 hour 3 stop trip ahead of a 27 hour 1 stop trip because the configuration is such that a 9 hour layover is less acceptable than three layovers each of which is less than 9 hours apiece??? And since SWO originating trip has at the least a 9 hour layover where as the TUL originating trip has less than that as they have TUL-DFW flights later in the day, then that is why I can pull QF 7/8 flights using TUL instead of SWO as the destination. Not sure.

As for multi-city, AA won't allow any QF 7/8 flights show up on the DFW/SYD leg. All those flights go through LAX to make the AA73 flight to SYD. (which, perhaps, AA is reserving the right not to ticket a flight that has no AA segment)

MarkOK

Yeahhhh, that might be too true. I mean, I spent an hour at work today just 'looking' at what options might exist in the future, all because I was thinking that if I go to Australia, I want to know the flight costs and logistics of getting on that A380.

I guess my concern is that I know I am also half impulsive, especially when busy at work, and if I have the urge to get something booked and not a lot of time, I will just commit to something without a thorough investigation and now I am thinking I will get myself into an annoying ticket at some point (such as spending an extra few hours travel time and an unneccessary layover in LAX) when a much better option may be there all along.