View Full Version : Interline vs same carrier
Hartington
5th Oct 2014, 17:18
I really don't understand why so many people dislike the idea of connecting two different carriers together. Why not buy a ticket A-B-C flying A-B on one airline and B-C on a different carrier? With the wonders of code sharing even if all the flights have the same carrier code you end up on different carriers. If you REALLY want to travel on one carrier you have to understand code sharing and work around it so why not just take advantage of the interline system and connect convenient flights together?
In a word, Price.
These days interline means sum of sector pricing, whereas online pricing will be a through fare which usually will be lower.
The EC and US DOT killed interline when they put IATA out of the pricing business. (In their last decade, or so, of pricing activity they focused on interline)
Hartington
5th Oct 2014, 19:19
But internationally that's not true. There are through fares over multiple airlines. Essentially a fare A-B-C booked using the code of one airline but operated by two different airlines (which can happen within code sharing and alliances) is a sophisticated interline fare.
I was more speaking of international.
Prices where the same marketing carrier is designated on all sectors is an 'on-line' price and carriage is on-line. It is the marketing carrier whose price and terms and conditions apply. At least that is what regulators say.
Take GVA-YVR. BA/LH/KL will all have on-line prices on flights using their own metal the entire journey. AC will have on-line prices where LH is used GVA-FRA and/or FRA-YVR and their code is on one or both flights. Funnily enough AC does not code-share with LX on LHR-GVA, so a request for that itinerary gets you sum-of-sectors (interline) as does BA-LHR-AC.