code share

You’ll often read the term code share here at the blog. What does it mean? Code share agreements are signed by two or more airlines with the aim of offering a greater number of destinations to their customers while not having to physically fly to those destinations.

How do they do it? When it enters a code share agreement, airline A, interested in taking its customers to a destination she doesn’t fly to, purchases a number of tickets from airline B, and resells them as their own. It has the right of using its own flight number (parallel to the one used by airline B, the one operating the flight).

In practice, a passenger from airline A buy a ticket with an airline A flight number (beginning with numbers other than the ones used by the airline for its own flights) but ends up flying with airline B.

Both airlines benefit from the agreement. Airline A is capable of offering more destinations to its clients without the need of using its own aircraft to transport a reduced number of clients that would make the flight uneconomical. Airline B increases the occupation of its own flights with passengers from airline A.

The consumer wins in so far as it includes his entire itinerary in just the one ticket. They can also acumulate miles on its own airline’s program and checks in their baggage to their final destination. But the customer might end up losing if the service offered by the airline operating the flight is inferior to the one offered by the company that sold him the ticket.

All the big airlines have code share agreements. And in the context of alliances, code share agreements are the rule among the companies forming an alliance.

Tags: code share

Category: airfares