Star RTW responsability

Tickets issued by Air NZ which handles first 2 segments.
Then, it is Air Canada, Thai and Singapore.

I had been told originally that Air NZ would remain THE sole point of contact
should changes be required anywhere along the way.

Now, a potentially clueless Air NZ agent told me that after the last sector
handled by NZ, Air NZ would no longer have the file and could not make changes
and that the PAX would have to call individual airlines.

Can anyone confirm that this last paragraph is false and that in fact Air NZ
would remain the sole point of contact throughout the journey ?

Also, in a specific case of the Air Canada segment (YUL-CDG). Should Air
Canada disapear from the face of the earth, would they be flexible with the
RTW rules and allow rebooking on Air France which offers competing service, or
would they require complex rerouting on a combination of UA/LH ?

Also, if is fair to expect no action from NZ until the pax calls ? or would,
as the ticket issuer, be compelled to automatically protect the passenger on
an equivalent flight ?

Would charter carriers such as Transat, Oceania, Skyservice move in such a way
that they could accept endorsed tickets ? Or are they so different in terms of
ticket handling that they could not participate in helping the ticketed
passengers ?

On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 07:16:09 -0300, nobody wrote:

Tickets issued by Air NZ which handles first 2 segments.
Then, it is Air Canada, Thai and Singapore.

I had been told originally that Air NZ would remain THE sole point of contact
should changes be required anywhere along the way.

Now, a potentially clueless Air NZ agent told me that after the last sector
handled by NZ, Air NZ would no longer have the file and could not make changes
and that the PAX would have to call individual airlines.

Can anyone confirm that this last paragraph is false and that in fact Air NZ
would remain the sole point of contact throughout the journey ?

Also, in a specific case of the Air Canada segment (YUL-CDG). Should Air
Canada disapear from the face of the earth, would they be flexible with the
RTW rules and allow rebooking on Air France which offers competing service, or
would they require complex rerouting on a combination of UA/LH ?

Also, if is fair to expect no action from NZ until the pax calls ? or would,
as the ticket issuer, be compelled to automatically protect the passenger on
an equivalent flight ?

Would charter carriers such as Transat, Oceania, Skyservice move in such a way
that they could accept endorsed tickets ? Or are they so different in terms of
ticket handling that they could not participate in helping the ticketed
passengers ?


I don't have specific answers to your questions, but for imformation
purposes, I used a Star rtw ticket in December/January. The flights,
in sequential order, were on: SQ/NZ/LH. Although they weren't the
first carrier, I chose to book with and have it ticketed by NZ, simply
because I find them the most helpful of the 3, and they were quite
happy with that. For additional seat allocations, and book-the-cook
meals I contacted SQ and LH directly, and also got their own PNRs for
the bookings. The one change I made during the journey was in fact one
of the NZ flights, but I would have thought that any changes could be
made with the relevant airline for the sector involved. As I
understand it there is no need for any endorsement of the ticket from
one airline to another, as it is valid for travel on all Star Alliance
carriers. I would think that in the event of a collapse of AC, you
would get free changes but only to other Star alliance carriers. I
wonder what happened to people holding such tickets when AN went bang?
--==++AJC++==--

Each airline has a separate booking system. The one that makes the very
first booking has to send messages to each of the other airlines to confirm
their space. Even once their flights are complete the record of the other
airline segments will remain so that means NZ will have a record of your
complete booking.

The other airlines will receive the details of their flights and of the
flight that delivers the passenger to their flight (even if it's not an
immediate connection). They might get a copy of the other flights but that
depends on so many ifs that I couldn't guarantee anything.

Life then begins to get very complicated. If you go back to NZ each time
they will update their own booking and each of the other carriers. If you
go to one of the other carriers they will update their own bookings and,
depending on what else they know (see above), they might update other
affected carriers but, again, lots of ifs.

There are, however, benefits going to the individual airlines (1) they may
well have offices where NZ don't (2) they will have much better information
about availability on their services than NZ will so you might get a seat
when NZ can't (3) if changes have occurred they should have advised NZ but
it occasionally fails so going to the horses mouth will get correct data.

Personally, I wouldn't give it another thought and go to the nearest Star
office, preferably the airline you want to travel on. Even before the
alliances the airlines were very good at reading one anothers' tickets and
changing them, the whole point of Star, oneWorld et al is to make tat even
easier. The ticket contains everything the airline needs to know.

--
*****
*****The "return to" address embedded in this mail is wrong as an antispam
measure. Please address new mails or replies to
edwarddotharrison1atbtinternetdotcom replacing dot with a . and at
with an @*****
*****

"nobody" wrote in message ...
Tickets issued by Air NZ which handles first 2 segments.
Then, it is Air Canada, Thai and Singapore.

I had been told originally that Air NZ would remain THE sole point of contact
should changes be required anywhere along the way.

Now, a potentially clueless Air NZ agent told me that after the last sector
handled by NZ, Air NZ would no longer have the file and could not make
changes and that the PAX would have to call individual airlines.

Can anyone confirm that this last paragraph is false and that in fact Air NZ
would remain the sole point of contact throughout the journey ?

It depends greatly on where the booking was made - NZ direct or
through an agent. If it was through an agent, then yes, NZ won't see
anything in their system apart from their own flights and maybe an
information segment or two on any direct connecting segments.
If it was made direct with NZ, then they have the whole booking in
thier system.
It is of no great consequence - any * carrier can do the changes for
you, if they can see your ticket at the same time, and it is in many
circumstances best to do changes direct with the operating carrier
anyway.

Also, in a specific case of the Air Canada segment (YUL-CDG).
Should Air Canada disapear from the face of the earth, would they
be flexible with the RTW rules and allow rebooking on Air France
which offers competing service, or would they require complex
rerouting on a combination of UA/LH ?

They would be flexible on the rules to the extent they would waive
any over mileage or city transfer rules to reaccomodate your YUL-CDG
sector onto other * combinations, as well as waive reissue fees.
When Ansett fell over, no domestic segments within Oz were
handled by Qantas for example, but many passengers were
re-routed via SQ and NZ to get from a point in Oz to another point in
Oz. (Anyone stranded in PER with a PER-SYD segment as their next
in the * RTW itinerary were rerouted PER-SIN-SYD as an example.)
Anyone who didn't want to do that simply purchased special rescue
fares Qantas & VirginBlue offered and claimed that back on travel
insurance at a later date.

Also, if is fair to expect no action from NZ until the pax calls ? or would,
as the ticket issuer, be compelled to automatically protect the passenger on
an equivalent flight ?

Again, it depends on the booking - if it was made direct with NZ it
depends on if you have contact numbers for every city stopover in
the booking and if you made it with an agent it depends if they send
the same information to the carriers - they can't contact you if they
don't have all the information. Having said that, if a large carrier like
AC did slip away, there would literally be hundreds, possibly thousands,
of affected bookings NZ would be dealing with. It would probably be a
case of you contacting them before they could ever get around to
contacting you - don't forget it wouldn't just be you NZ would be trying
to help, so "fair" doesn't come into it.
Here again, you could just roll up at any * carrier ticket office/desk with
ticket in hand and get assistance in rerouting, rather than trying to
contact a carrier by phone.

I usually always request my * RTW ticket to be issued on the paper of
the carrier that I have the most segments in the itinerary with.
I find that it's far easier for changes while en-route.

In article , nobody
wrote:

Can anyone confirm that this last paragraph is false and that in fact Air NZ
would remain the sole point of contact throughout the journey ?

Other than a mild level of additional convenience, or a sense of
entitlement that ANZ issued your ticket, so they SHOULD be responsible,
why would you want this arrangement? There are enough problems with the
airline industry today (delays, cancellations, aircraft substitutions,
security alerts, etc) that I would be MUCH happier dealing dirctly with
each airline that was providing me with transportation.