Ethiopian-UA codeshares - did UA forget to load the flights into the system/website?
 

Ethiopian Airlines, and several industry reporters, have noted that UA and ET entered into a codeshare agreement that apparently took effect several days ago -- "Ethiopian Airlines is pleased to announce that it has entered into a codeshare agreement with United Airlines, effective 30 August 2014."

I tried to make a booking for early next year that included IAD-ADD, but all UA.com could come up with was the tired old IAD-FRA-ADD routing using LH, which I will never do again (because of both the LH and FRA components - no fun fighting through the awful FRA connection to get zero PQM and PQD on the long LH sector !!).

My understanding of "effective" is that codeshare flights should have been available as of the end of last month, and certainly should have been available by early next year.

Did UA forget to implement the agreement ?? Can anyone shed any light on this ??

The IAD-ADD flight appears to be listed on the consolidated United timetable. Flight has the number UA7174. May have to try booking it through a travel agent if it's not showing up on the website.

The code share nonstop IAD-ADD does appear on united.com now; perhaps it was just added. I tried a booking for February 4. Only full Y fares though! I'm wondering if the flight is not daily, and perhaps OP tried to book an off-day?

Also, a codeshare agreement does not mean that every possible flight has a codeshare. In most agreements, only a relatively small number of flights actually are codeshares.

Interestingly, many ET flights have now appeared (and not only Y fares, plenty of less expensive options now); perhaps another victory for FT publicity?

Here's what's really screwy. UA is selling flights on Kenya Air, which is not a *A partner. But they're not selling flights, code-share or otherwise, on Ethiopian. Not unless you force it by looking for award travel and then choosing the buy option, which gets you a Y fare.

The relationship with Ethiopian is rather odd indeed. Then again, Ethiopian may have one of the few IT departments that would look to UA as being something to aspire to. The hoops I had to go through to buy a ticket from them approach legend status. Thought they were purchased on the website (https no less, all seemed fine, including the extra visa security step), then got an email saying they were not confirmed, please give a call. The phone call was confusing, to say the least, but what ultimately came of it was a form they sent me to fill out and fax to them (fax? my business got rid of its fax machine quite some time ago), along with a fax photo of my drivers license and the front & back of the credit card. But they misread the zip code and called back a day later to say my card was declined. And that led to a fraud check by my CC company, which deactivated my card until I called them to explain things. Eventually it all worked out, but... wow... just wow.

On the plus (?) side, I was doing an NRT-SFO award search yesterday and a few rows down, was offered a routing via Addis Ababa on the ET 787. Tempting. Even for an FT'er, that's a pretty awesome way to get from NRT to SFO.

Presumably in C/J? I didn't find ANA's 787 all that exciting in Y, and it had a nicer seating arrangement than either UA or ET (2-3-2 instead of 3-3-3; this was ANA's 2-class bird).

Indeed. A year later, UA will happily give you ET flights... but it may neglect to mention that oh, by the way, ET has all these rules about third-party purchases. Yesterday I got an intinerary booked (purchase went through) which includes LH from Frankfurt to Kenya (well, Privatair) and back from Saudi Arabia, with NBO-ADD-RUH on ET. UA promptly emailed me to say that they were waiting for confirmation on the ET segments, and that "This process may take up to 24 hours."

24 hours came and went; I looked at ET's website and quickly found:
http://www.ethiopianairlines.com/inf...rd-restriction

"third party payment with credit/debit card through the internet is possible for individuals other than the card holder. However, for security reasons, the holder of the credit card may be contacted by email to verify the credit card used at the airport or at nearby Ethiopian ticket office for in person verification."

I'm unsure that my flight coordinator's email address is anywhere on my reservation - I certainly don't see it. So I may have to get both of us on the phone with United and/or Ethiopian to either sort it out, or to turn it into an open-jaw itinerary sans the ET segments, and then separately book Kenya-Saudi Arabia somewhere else... :(

The 2-3-2 seating arrangement in Y you refer to is NH premium economy, so not really comparable to regular economy on UA/ET. It's also only a couple of rows. Most, if not all, ANA 787s in regular economy are 3-3-3 by now I think - I'm sure someone knows better if there are still any 2-4-2 versions on regular economy left. So comparing economy to economy, seating arrangement is the same. How the comfort is between them I'm not sure, but I'm connecting from a UA '87 to an NH one next week, so I'll be able to report.

Checked UA.com and called - when Ethiopian still hadn't gotten back to them after 72 hours, they flat-out cancelled it. So now I have a shiny new open-jaw on UA/LX/LH and the remaining short side of the triangle will probably be on EK, not ET. No biggie, either way I'm getting to try a new airline.