[Luc Jones]

I recently booked a Turkish Airways economy flight from BLR – LHR via BOM & IST. Despite holding StarAlliance Gold (with United), I was denied lounge access both at BLR (domestic) and BOM (intl) as the first two legs of my journey were codeshared with IndiGo, an Indian LLC. My argument that it’s a TK ticket, not IndiGo fell on deaf ears as almost all lounges in India are 3rd party operated and don’t recognise any alliances (the fact that most lounges in India are little more than glorified canteens is a separate topic for a later discussion).

Add to this the fact that no miles were credited to my United account for the two codeshare legs – United did reply to my letter stating that although IndiGo are a StarAlliance codeshare partner, the standad benefits don’t apply.

My question therefore is, what the actual point of such a codeshare? If I had wanted to fly an LCC, I would have booked it directly with IndiGo at a considerably lower cost.

This also happened earlier this year, flying fom BLR to PNH via BKK on Thai – no miles or lounge access between BKK – PNH as this is operated by ThaiSmiles (despite me buying a Thai Airlines ticket).

Is this the shape of things to come or should I just be a whole lot more careful and only book on actual StarAlliance metal?

Any thoughts/comments/suggestions would be appreciated,

Luc Jones

3 users thanked author for this post.

Lydia, PhilipHart, jwhi56

[BackOfThePlane]

In this instance, I guess the point of codeshare is that you removed a large element of risk in terms of connections (and that’s one hell of a routing you took).

I’m not sure from your OP whether the journey from Bengalaru to London was done in one go or whether you broke the journey with, for example, nights in Mumbai and / or Istanbul?

If it was one, continuous journey, by flying on a codeshare ticket you passed the responsibility for any missed connections on to the airline. Yes, you could book cheaper tickets direct from Bengalaru to Mumbai, but you would have needed to have collected your bags at Mumbai, checked in again and, if you had missed the onward flight from Mumbai to Istanbul, well, that would have been your responsibility.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Luc Jones

[cwoodward]

It depends totally on the codeshare. Many are useful to both passengers and airlines.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Luc Jones

[AMcWhirter]

Some time ago this odd collection of airlines was discussed on Twitter (by travellers based in India).

My first reaction was that such code-sharing wouldn’t be allowed by the UK regulator but, to my surprise, when I checked TK’s UK site these flights can be booked.

But timings and not good and the journey time is lengthy.

For London to Bangalore the overall journey time with en route plane changes varies between 20+ and almost 24 hours.

I expect because of complaints TK has had to insert advisories “There is no internet and/or in-flight entertainment system due to the infrastructure on codeshares (shared) flights with Indigo Airlines. Please visit our [a link is provided to another page with more codeshare flight details] for more information.”

Another advisory appears under the Air India BOM-BLR flight.

All very time-consuming.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Luc Jones

[Luc Jones]

Thank you for you comments, everyone, much appreciated. I should mention that the majoity of intenational flights leaving India depart in the middle of the night, so my logic in choosing to fly BLR – LHR via BOM & IST was so that I could fly out of Bangalore after work and enjoy a few relaxing drinks in the lounges & break up the journey a little. The one daily, direct flight – on BA, inconveniently leaves at 07:00 and is typically much more expensive than indirect alternatives.

I’m generally a fan of codeshaes WHEN (and this is the key word), they offer the same, or at least a similar level of sevice. However what I puchased was far from what I expected – and the IndiGo flight fom BOM to IST makes a stop at RKT, lengthening the jouney by a good hour and a half, something that isn’t made clear when booking.

The only ‘benefit’ here (as BackOfThePlane mentions) is that I had a though ticket, although as I travelled with only hand luggage, there would have been no issue with e-checking in bags.

All in all, it seems like a bit of a con – you buy a ticket with one of the Alliance Members in good faith yet you receive none of the benefits. Anyway, I’ve learned my lesson and will stick to the proper metal.

Hopefully others on this site will now also be aware,

[Woodpecker]

The issue here is that the code sharing is between an out-and-out Low Cost Carrier Indigo & a full service carrier Turkish.

Indigo are well established as a no frills airline, so even flying them on Turkish code share would at maximum provide a through check in and most likely a no frills meal. Indigo aircraft have no business class seats, IFE or any of the established perks that come with a full service carrier.

I flew them HKG-BLR-HKG pre covid, and all we got was a glass of water on request. Their ticket costs are comparatively less, but all one should expect from them is to get you from A to B which they do. Most sub-continent based travellers are extremely cost conscious, and several Indian based airlines are LCC precisely for this reason.

As the OP said, this would happen even on code share between Thai & Thai Smiles or SQ & Scoot. So yes, this is a shape of things. One just needs to be aware of the code share partner before purchasing the ticket.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Luc Jones

[cwoodward]

Of course there are also ‘limited partnerships’ that are normally granted by the governments of the countries involved and between the 2 airlines involved.

One such is between Cathay and Air NZ on flights between HKG and Auckland and it is granted as I recall for 3 years and has been renewed a couple of times at least.
Both airlines fly the route but revenues are shared – how I don’t know.
The actual partnership document is available online should anyone be interested.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Luc Jones

[cwoodward]

Of course there are also ‘limited partnerships’ that are normally granted by the governments of the countries involved and between the 2 airlines involved.

One such is between Cathay and Air NZ on flights between HKG and Auckland and it is granted as I recall for 3 years and has been renewed a couple of times at least.
Both airlines fly the route but revenues are shared – how I don’t know.
The actual partnership document is available online should anyone be interested.

[cwoodward]

Further my above
The intention of the above mentioned partnership is of course to effectively ‘lock out’ the route and of course there are no competitors on this lucrative route and both airlines ticket prices are identical.
Should these sort of arrangements be allowed

1 user thanked author for this post.

Luc Jones

[AMcWhirter]

India is a very conscious market. When Wow Air operated there for a short time even this LCC was surprised at how thrifty Indian passengers could be as they were not, at that time, used to LCCs.

The Indian government intervened and compelled Wow Air to serve free water onboard.

Wow Air compelled to offer passengers free water

1 user thanked author for this post.

Luc Jones

[AMcWhirter]

As a further comment on this thread this airline combination, Indigo to Turkish, is again today being discussed by Indian customers on twitter today.

A business analyst was considering whether or not to fly BOM-IST-LHR with the same airline combination.

So I asked him why take that route instead of a non-stop flight or a connection via the Gulf ?

His reply:

“It’s the budget which is making me to take this route.”

1 user thanked author for this post.

Luc Jones

[Luc Jones]

I should add that I have flown with IndiGo domestically on numerous occasions in India and they’re fine for short hops of 1-2 hours – their route network is extensive and fares are relatively low on their fleet of new planes. IndiGo are making a lot of noise about their link-up with TK, providing them with a gateway to Europe.

My hope is that under new ownership, Air India gets its act together as the nation’s flag carrier. Their planes don’t look as though they have been refurbished since the 1980s, the business class product is poor (no alcohol served on domestic routes – seriously, guys?) and the lounges are a massive disappointment – and I’m being polite here. With decent management there’s no reason why Air India can’t provide strong competition to the Middle Eastern carriers.

But back to the original topic – I find it extremely poor that in an attempt to expand, the Global Alliances have seriously watered down their offering. StarAlliance did reply to my letter by not actually answering my question, simply stating that ‘not all lounges allow entry to all Star Alliance Gold card holders” which begs the follow up question: ‘what’s the point of having an alliance, then?’ !!

Luc

[Edin12]

You need to be really careful. I inadvertently booked a Qatar flight from India to UK, not realising that the first half was on IndiGo. I only realised my mistake when i couldn’t book seats. To confuse things more, it left 5 mins after an actual Qatar service and cost was virtually the same. It only appears in tiny faded text on the online booking site saying ‘operated by IndiGo’and is thus an easy mistake to make. Fortunately the kind travel agent shifted me to the actual Qatar flight leaving 5 mins earlier for a modest admin fee. Its a really odd arrangement.

[Author]

Posts