Just sat on the plane at Heathrow ready to take off to Dubai! Starting to get more excited now I have navigated the airport and found my seat...
comments
Jagdish
As soon as one comes off a simple A to B (and rreutn) ticket, one does need to be aware of how things are being done. There are cost implications A to B to C, for example may be cheaper (or very much more expensive) than A to B AND THEN B to C. Mutliple sector itineraries are becoming a tad more difficult. Many legacy airlines have intorduced more point to point fares (so A to B rreutn may be a combination of two single tickets) for example, British Airways on many short haul routes. Two things are happening as airlines seek to hike up fares firstly, a lot of the interline type cheaper fares have quietly gone by the board (say out on airline A then back on airline B but this can be ameliorated by the trend to point to point fares and secondly, rules have changed. For example many BA short and medium haul Y class fares cannot be change on day of travel. For business use, this knocks them out altogether as many business travellers will not know that they need to change a few hours before travel, let alone the day before.For many leisure people, who use the cheap fares, this is another world. They plan their travel well in advance, book their flights go and come back. it is an adventure. Other leisure types see an advert to a place and pick up a cheapo rreutn nothing wrong with that. BUT what one forgets is that a Boeing or Airbus does not cost 2 shillings and sixpence on the never-never and so these leisure travellers have to be paid for it is the business traveller that funds this (even in the case of low cost airlines, the business traveller, for it is often he or she that books at the last moment or so cops the most expensive fare)So with a multi-sector itinerary, the traveller needs a slightly different skill-set and needs to know not only what has been booked but how it has been booked as well. The MCT provisions only apply where the flights are booked as an interline ticket that is, the sectors making up the whole are all on the same ticket and with etickets, it is not as easy to tell if this is the case. As Nick points out, if you are going from, say QANTAS to Virgin Blue, these do not interline. It is two seperate tickets so one must allow enough time to land, allow for late arrival, collect baggage, go through customs, go to the departures bit and re-check-in. Stupidly (IMHO) some GDS systems show connections with a legacy/ low cost carrier I don't know why and it is very silly. For example, I have seen BA connecting (in the US) to JetBlue, which of course, they can't. Even some quasi-lowcost airlines can create problems, where a legacy airline codeshares with a quasi-webby type airline eg BA do not interline with CCM airlines (Corsican outfit) Okay, so use the Air France codeshare for the CCM flights but that doesn't work either (incidently, splitting the tickets costs a3200 more than a through ticket to boot, so you lose out financially as well as losing any connection guarantee that one may have).In fine, if you have a properly issued multisector ticket, you are safe and you do not have to worry if you miss a connection you are the airlines problem and they have to look after you and get you to your destination (and on balance nearly all legacy carriers do this well and with good grace) But on should think very carefully before trying to multi-sector using low cost carriers.
Jagdish As soon as one comes off a simple A to B (and rreutn) ticket, one does need to be aware of how things are being done. There are cost implications A to B to C, for example may be cheaper (or very much more expensive) than A to B AND THEN B to C. Mutliple sector itineraries are becoming a tad more difficult. Many legacy airlines have intorduced more point to point fares (so A to B rreutn may be a combination of two single tickets) for example, British Airways on many short haul routes. Two things are happening as airlines seek to hike up fares firstly, a lot of the interline type cheaper fares have quietly gone by the board (say out on airline A then back on airline B but this can be ameliorated by the trend to point to point fares and secondly, rules have changed. For example many BA short and medium haul Y class fares cannot be change on day of travel. For business use, this knocks them out altogether as many business travellers will not know that they need to change a few hours before travel, let alone the day before.For many leisure people, who use the cheap fares, this is another world. They plan their travel well in advance, book their flights go and come back. it is an adventure. Other leisure types see an advert to a place and pick up a cheapo rreutn nothing wrong with that. BUT what one forgets is that a Boeing or Airbus does not cost 2 shillings and sixpence on the never-never and so these leisure travellers have to be paid for it is the business traveller that funds this (even in the case of low cost airlines, the business traveller, for it is often he or she that books at the last moment or so cops the most expensive fare)So with a multi-sector itinerary, the traveller needs a slightly different skill-set and needs to know not only what has been booked but how it has been booked as well. The MCT provisions only apply where the flights are booked as an interline ticket that is, the sectors making up the whole are all on the same ticket and with etickets, it is not as easy to tell if this is the case. As Nick points out, if you are going from, say QANTAS to Virgin Blue, these do not interline. It is two seperate tickets so one must allow enough time to land, allow for late arrival, collect baggage, go through customs, go to the departures bit and re-check-in. Stupidly (IMHO) some GDS systems show connections with a legacy/ low cost carrier I don't know why and it is very silly. For example, I have seen BA connecting (in the US) to JetBlue, which of course, they can't. Even some quasi-lowcost airlines can create problems, where a legacy airline codeshares with a quasi-webby type airline eg BA do not interline with CCM airlines (Corsican outfit) Okay, so use the Air France codeshare for the CCM flights but that doesn't work either (incidently, splitting the tickets costs a3200 more than a through ticket to boot, so you lose out financially as well as losing any connection guarantee that one may have).In fine, if you have a properly issued multisector ticket, you are safe and you do not have to worry if you miss a connection you are the airlines problem and they have to look after you and get you to your destination (and on balance nearly all legacy carriers do this well and with good grace) But on should think very carefully before trying to multi-sector using low cost carriers.