What alliance does emirates belong to? Are they part of the star alliance or Sky team. I tried to book a flight from New Orleans and it gave me the option of using Delta, United or Continental to get the New York or Houston for the actual emirates flight to Dubai. How are they able to work this out with these airlines?

EK are not a member of any alliance

they just simply codeshare with other airlines regardless of alliances


J

[Edited 2007-12-22 23:05:26]

Emirates has its own program called Skywards. Skywards members can earn miles on six other carriers (Continental, South African, Japan Airlines, Korean Air and United).

When you book international travel on a website such as Travelocity or Expedia, they will book whatever flights are available between your two cities on any airlines available whether they belong to the same frequent flyer program or not. Generally most airlines except budget airlines such as Southwest or Ryanair "interline" which means that your bags can be checked through and you reservation is on one ticket number. You have to remember that the Alliances have only been around for the last 10 years or so, but people were making connections on different airlines long before them with interline agreements.

If you book the flight on an airlines website, they will only show flights from that airline and it partners.

it's one of the things that defines a legacy carrier - interline agreements.

IIRC Aer Lingus set about cancelling its interline agreements when it converted it business model from legacy to LCC, only retaining the commercially important ones and the OneWorld alliance carriers

Now you might find it difficult to interline between EI and OA, for example, whereas before they would have had an interline agreement to allow connections to be sold, bags to be interlined and revenue to be divvied up etc.

AA interlines bags onto OA (although the check-in agents usually have to check their computer to see if an agreement exists before they will create the bag tag, and/or charge you excess baggage   )

I chose OA because they also don't belong to one of the big 3 alliances. EK is smart - they'll pick up UA's Star traffic, CO's Skyteam traffic and AA's Oneworld traffic by NOT belonging to any one alliance!

Emirates is part of the Emirates Alliance which consists of the following airlines:

Quoting Cloudyapple (Reply 4): Emirates is part of the Emirates Alliance which consists of the following airlines: Emirates They fly from anywhere to everywhere via Dubai. They are able to do it on their own they don't need anyone else.

In a few years, if EKs staggering growth plans come to fruition, this might probably not be very far from the truth, except for the "via Dubai" bit - I still think EK will want to have one or two secondary hubs like AKL.

Quoting Philzh (Reply 5): In a few years, if EKs staggering growth plans come to fruition, this might probably not be very far from the truth, except for the "via Dubai" bit - I still think EK will want to have one or two secondary hubs like AKL.

They would have to. The Pacific is the only area they can't adequately cover from DXB. Taking advantage of open skies with NZ avoids the process SQ has been going through for years with the Australian government over access to the pacific. If the UAE already has open skies with the US then they're set really. It's simply a matter of gaining more access over the north pacific.

Quoting Vhqpa (Reply 1): they just simply codeshare with other airlines regardless of alliances

It's usually not codeshares, but prorate agreements; EK signs agreements with other airlines on how much they have to pay them per passenger that they connect onto one of their flights. They'll then incorporate that into a through-fare so that the passenger is able to book, for example, a flight from MSY to DUR, using CO to get to New York on one end of the flight, and SAA to get from JNB to DUR on the other.

Otherwise you'd have to buy three tickets to do the same thing, which is - as always - extremely undesirable because of the fact that you'd be completely unprotected on your transfers "between tickets".

Quoting Eghansen (Reply 2): When you book international travel on a website such as Travelocity or Expedia, they will book whatever flights are available between your two cities on any airlines available whether they belong to the same frequent flyer program or not

While technically correct, it's not quite precise enough: they'll book whatever is available, as long as permitted by the relevant fare rules of the publishing carrier. If EK permits connections on CO, UA and DL, Expedia or other IBEs will not offer that flight with, for example, an AA connection, despite the AA flight being wide open in its availability.

Quoting Cloudyapple (Reply 4): Emirates is part of the Emirates Alliance which consists of the following airlines: Emirates

Don't forget Sri Lankan