What the Heck Is a Codeshare, Anyway?

June 21, 2005 — -- Ah, for the days when the name on the side of the plane had something to do with the airline you thought you were flying.

You were pretty sure you bought a ticket on one airline, but when you showed up at the airport, they sent you to another airline in another part of the airport because that other airline is "operating this flight." Worse, they were in another terminal about halfway across the continent. Whoa.

If I buy a ticket on Hotwings Airlines, shouldn't I expect Hotwings to fly the darned airplane? Welcome to the sometimes confusing world of codeshare agreements.

On its Web site, American Airlines defines the term "codeshare" like this:

Definition -- What is codeshare?
An interline partnership where one carrier markets service and places its code on another carrier's flights. This offers carriers an opportunity to provide service to destinations not in their route structure. These schedules are considered online bookings for most situations. An exception could be the minimum connecting time, which is sometimes equal to the off-line connection time."

(http://www.aa.com/content/uk/agency/partners/codeshares.jhtml)

Huh?

In its simplest form, codesharing works like this: You buy a ticket on American Airlines for a flight operated by Alaska Airlines along a route American otherwise does not serve. Both airlines are superlative major carriers (like most, if not all the carriers large and small in America today), so safety is not a concern. But what's terribly confusing is just exactly who's going to be providing that sumptuous meal of in-flight peanuts: American or Alaska?

Well, in the world of codeshare agreements, it's American's ticket, American collected your money, and American has an American Airlines flight number for you, but in reality it's an Alaska Airlines flight operated by Alaska's pilots and flight attendants over Alaska's route system.

Up there on the departures board you'll find your American Airlines flight number listed. But in a separate listing on the same board, there's an Alaska Airlines flight number going to the same place. Only when you stare hard and realize they're both going to be pushing back from the same gate at the same time does it begin to become clear that it is, in fact, the same flight -- in this case, using a big white airplane with a large trademark Eskimo (actually an Athabaskan Native American) up there on the tail, smiling at you from under his parka.