No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
a constant advocate for consumer rights in the skies, has drawn attention to what he calls code-sharing and change-of-gauge tricks as deceptive airline practices. This is in connection with intercontinental travel, where the US Department of Transportation has now allowed an extension of what is a common practice on internal US airlines, where major airlines have adopted small regional airlines and use a common code for flights. This is with the intent to encourage passengers traveling to or from small cities, on journeys that involve a plane change at a major airport, to choose one particular airline, the one which has adopted the small carrier at that airport.
What has now been approved are code-sharing arrangements betwen United Airlines and British Airways over the Atlantic and over the Pacific between American Airlines and Qantas Airways. It is further proposed that Pan Am and Malev Hungarian Airlines will fly a route between New York, Frankfurt and Budapest, which in the latter leg will be labeled as a Pan Am flight, but on certain days of the week will use a Malev Tupolev 154 plane. Pevsner wonders whether the Budapest-bound Pan Am passenger will realize that a plane change to that of another airline is about to happen. At the time of writing, this particular arrangement has already gone through.
Others that are in the works are arrangements between Gulf Air and TWA, whereby Gulf planes will fly between New York and London with a TWA crew, and be labeled with a TWA code. Air India and TWA are seeking to share codes from Chicago to London to India to imply a non-existent through service, while Continental Airlines will code-share with the Dutch carrier Transavia between London and Amsterdam using the Continental code for the North Sea Journey.
For those who do not like to encounter this kind of surprise, the advice has to be that of eternal vigilance, and of booking via a travel agent rather than with the airline, for the former may be expected to give more objective advice.
A selection of forthcoming events
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