In September 2015, American and Delta discontinued their interline agreement. An interline agreement is one of the lowest levels of cooperation between airlines, as it's less involved than a joint venture, an alliance, a partnership, or a codeshare agreement. An interline agreement simply allows tickets to be sold on multiple airlines, and allows an airline…
Continue reading: American & Delta Restore Their Interline Agreement
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DL Plat here. In the last three months of 2017 I had two unscheduled overnights due to Delta irregular ops. In both cases American had flights available that would’ve gotten me to my destination the same day. the second time I paid for the ticket on American on my own and called Delta the next day and got them to reimburse me. In both cases, I made sure to let everyone I spoke with know that it was a disgrace that they did not have any interline agreement with American.
Bottom line, Delta reinstated only because they heard the complaints from many ffs with their seemingly quarterly meltdowns throughout 2017. The inter linen should’ve never been terminated, but props for reinstating.
North American Airlines are very low qwality. I fly 80% First Class and 20% business so I know what I talk about.
Interesting no phone call required
Is this interlining purely for the sake of irrops as nowadays it’s almost impossible to purchase a ticket involving a competitor ie DL/SkyTeam & AA on one ticket
Most fares are ticketing carrier and partner airlines only
It’s also possible that DL doesn’t accept AA however AA accepts DL That’s how agreements sometimes work
In case of irrops when protecting on another carrier , airlines are required to confirm that carrier has seats.
The fact they sell one doesn’t mean it’s not oversold and the reservtion system would not show that. Delta doesn’t have access to AA’s full inventory and vice versa
Pleanty of cases when a passenger is apparently rebooked and then sent back to the ticketing carrier as they could not be accepted
At a hub such as Atlanta or DFW the options are very limited for transferring on other carriers
“This is strictly an irregular operations ticketing and baggage re-accommodation agreement,” Delta spokesman Morgan Durrant said. “A true interline means things like fare combinability for travel agency and third party sales. That’s not what this is. At any rate, it’s a tool that will give our employees more options to re-accommodate customers whose flights are cancelled during weather and other uncommon scenarios when Delta flights are canceled.”
@Icarus - Calling to confirm reprotection was only needed in the days of PNL/ADL driven DCS where NOREC and GOSHO pax were handled at DCS rather than CRS level and only reconciled after departure with PFN. With e-tickets being standard now and DCS integration also widespread, CRS should reflect actual real time availability in virtually all cases.
@FinnSailor - E-tickets make it easier to just rebook people on other airlines rather than having to call to confirm space in the case of irregular operations, as had to be done years ago.
@ Ben -- It will be interesting to see what DL does when reaccomodating passengers who buy-up to F. For all other DL purposes, these are treated as paid discounted F tickets, so I wonder if reaccomodation to AA F will be avaialable.
@Lucky - one thing I’ve wondered about interline agreements is whether there are any time parameters on using a partner. In other words, if I’m booked on an American flight and get massively delayed because of IRROPS, and (1) they tell me they can’t get me out until the next day on an AA flight and (2) there’s same-day space on a DL flight, what obligation do they have to put me on the DL flight? Can I demand that they do so?
@flightwonk - AA isn't required to rebook you on another carrier in most cases. Like most things in air travel, it's really more about how much they like you (status/revenue), or how much additional you will cost them (vouchers/lost business).
Most airlines will not rebook you in situations outside their control (ie. weather), unless of course, you are very valuable to them.
@ah
As a general rule, you need to request "original routing credit" from the carrier you bought the ticket from, and they'll issue you the miles/segments/etc as originally purchased.
I've not had luck with this happening automatically, and usually have needed to call/email/tweet to request it
The past year was nice to see DL knocked down a peg and finally realizing that (GASP) they are susceptible to IROPs just like everyone else.
Lucky,
Is there any way to find out what airlines have interline agreements with other (and which) airlines. I have been told by some agents that airline X can't rebook me on airline Y because they don't have an agreement only to be rebooked on Y after speaking with a different agent! Sure would be nice to be armed with the interline info pro-avtively.
@ carol -- It's in ExpertFlyer, under the travel information section, if that helps.