cbn42

I had a connecting flight on two airlines (both star alliance, booked on the same ticket) and I got my two boarding passes at departure. However, at the gate for the second flight, an employee saw my boarding pass in hand and said "we don't accept that" and sent me to the GA to get a new boarding pass on their own stock.

Is this normal procedure? I have never had a problem boarding a plane with a boarding pass printed by a different airline before.

gobluetwo

Absolutely not normal procedure, ime. Don't know why they would not have accepted it. The one similar experience I did have, however, was on US Airways. The gate agent was confused by my UA-issued BP (UA connecting to US, so both were on UA card stock). It's possible that the GA is either new, hadn't ever seen a partner BP before, or was just unfamiliar with that particular partner. The GA should have at least tried to scan it and would have found that it was acceptable.

Often1

You don't list the carriers or the locations where the BPs were issued or the connecting station. Therefore, can't give you specifics. But, generally speaking -- it's very common.

The only thing that matters anymore is the bar code which is scanned when you board. When it's not compatible with the gate reader, it has to be manually processed. That takes time when boarding and also means paperwork throughout the system in a system which is designed for electronic processing.

Even some carriers can't accept connecting BP issued by their own check-in desks at other stations. All depends on whether the issuing station uses the carrier's proprietary system or is a contractor.

Maybe some day the carriers will go to a universal system (viz., scan codes on products purchased at grocery stores) so that every reader can immediately recognize all BP.

Henwurst

Not quite the same thing here either, but I had US airways refuse to accept their own boarding pass. I was flying ARN-PHL-LAS-LAX on an e-ticket, but the LAS-LAX boarding pass said it was not valid without the paper coupon (!). They sorted it out at the gate in LAS though.

It was when the ARN-PHL route was brand new (alas, they took it away later, sniff), so the staff at ARN probably hadn't got it all figured out just yet (e.g. they asked me if the Korean stamp in my passport was from North Korea). So, mistakes can always happen, but it is not normal procedure.

ajnz

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9650; en-GB) AppleWebKit/534.1+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.431 Mobile Safari/534.1+)

NZ will always reissue boarding passes onto NZ stock (regardless of the issuing airline) when reaching the gate/lounge. They do this to ensure compliance with New Zealand's immigration requirements.

u2fan

Yes, this can happen. Occasionally when a passenger checks in, the e-ticket can not match up with the flight segment so the computer checks you in with a paper ticket. When this happens, the GA (or someone) must stop the process and match the ticket with the segment.

LarryJ

I once boarded a United flight in Chicago with a boarding pass printed in Bahrain by Lufthansa. Looked strange as it was covered in Arabic writing.

gglave

I once turned up in FAT (love that airport code) for a Skywest flight to LAS with an Air Canada boarding pass. Raised a few eyebrows.

florin

"Very common" means it happens a LOT. It can happen, but it's seldom. Not exactly common and certainly not "very common". (IMHO)

I've experienced instances where the BP could not be properly scanned (reader was for some reason broken, the BP was dirty or crumpled,...). They manually enter the seat number (e.g. 8C, ENTER) and off you go. It only took the time to press 3 (sometimes 4) keys, which is roughly the time it takes to scan a BP. No paperwork. (This was SkyTeam tho, I rarely fly *A yet I have had issues with *A integration... miles for LX flights didn't post to my US account and I had to send in the paper BPs; no other option available, not even fax. )

Grocery stores only associate a number (the 1 dimensional bar code) with a product. All the info about the product is in the database, not stored in that bar code. BPs are quite the opposite - there is a lot of information stored in the (commonly used nowadays) 2D bar codes: e-ticket #, PNRs, flight #s, FF#, elite status, pax name, seat, class of service, etc. They would all have to adhere to the same standard of encoding this information. I can only see this happening if IATA gets involved and another 5-10 years go by (enough time for airlines to implement this in their systems). I love the idea, but I don't see this happening. I can tell you for sure that if DL doesn't see potential for INSTANT profits, they won't do it.

u2fan

Exactly: if the bar code does not scan, the GA enters the seat number. Takes a couple of seconds.

cbn42

Yes, this was NZ (and the boarding pass was CO). So I'm guessing this is just their excuse to get you to come to the counter so they can look at your passport. Makes sense now.

auher

Funny, sort of happened to me this weekend.... Was booked EWR-YYZ-YXU. EWR-YYZ on Continental and YYZ-YXU on Air Canada.

When going through the Canadian version of TSA, agent says "I didn't know Continental flew from here to Heathrow?" (......seriously?? You don't know London is in your own country as well)??

Mr. Roboto

Also with BR, they do however make several announcements in the boarding lounge (at least at LAX) to exchange your OAL BP for a BR issued BP at the gate counter prior to boarding. In fact I once saw a BR agent go up to everyone seated in the boarding lounge to ensure they were holding a BR BP before they started boarding.

chrismo2

In LHR, it seems that VS reissues all bording passes from other airlines. On arrival into LHR by air, all VS passengers are hearded into a transfer center queue at T3, where it seems that all BP's are reissued.

STBCypriot

This happens to me often on international flights when codeshares are involved. For example Czech Airlines will provide me all my boarding passes for my OK and DL flights, but DL will reprint them. Waste of paper if you ask me.