I was surprised to learn that there are these apparent pseudo-police in airports, probably with pseudo-training and expertise. The best folks are often on the big city police force that can afford better training and background checks - as you go farther away from that, you are more likely (but not always) going to find people with some issues.
My anger at united is surpassed by my anger against Air Canada. Whenever someone books me on a Vancouver-SFO trip using Air Canada one leg ends up on a "United" aircraft. The free market means my ticket on my national airline is sold to United, and then to whatever subcontractor is renting the United logo on the day. They are just the middleman in the chain of misery.
No, it is not a secret. Anybody who claims you can't reliably see if something is a codeshare or regional well in advance is lying, flat-out.
I just went to Air Canada's site, punched in a one-way YVR-SFO and picked a date. And do you know what? I see three types of listings:
* Air Canada flights, which show an Air Canada logo.
* Codeshare flights, which show a Star Alliance logo and say "Operated by United Airlines".
* Regional-affiliate flights, which show a variant Air Canada logo and say "Operated by Air Canada Express -- jazz".
In what way is the airline hiding that information from me if it's shown up-front in the listing when I'm selecting flights? Where is the deep dark secret way they're hiding this, if it's literally right there on the page?
Plus, when you book a codeshare flight your confirmation email will have the same information in it, and will tell you "At the airport, check in at the (operating airline) ticket counter". The idea that this is some sort of secret thing that's hidden to deceive people is simply ludicrous.
Not all of us book our own flights. Sometimes my only input is "Air Canada, direct if possible please". I've also been bumped from an actual Air Canada flight onto one of their "partners" totally against my will long after my purchase. After a long day, and then being bumped, I'm not in the mood to fight petty contract battles with a gate agent.
The absolute worst version of this happened to me on a SFO-YVR flight with a stopover in seattle. The seatle-vancouver flight was cancelled due to "weather" ... or more likely that there were only five of us booked on the flight. Plenty of other planes were operating out of Seattle that night and ours was the only one cancelled. So we were bumped from "Westjet" to a BUS COMPANY for a drive to Vancouver as that was cheaper than putting us in hotels overnight.
If you don't book your own flight, and have no control over the choices made on your behalf by the person doing the booking, that's not really the airline's fault.
And codeshares have helped me out more than once. For example, a few years ago I was scheduled to fly Kansas City to Toronto on US Airways, connecting in DCA. On the way to the airport in KC, I got a call saying my flight to DCA was delayed and I'd miss my connection, but (since this was back when US Airways was a Star Alliance member) they'd rebooked me onto the direct Air Canada flight from Kansas City to Toronto, so I'd just need to go to the Air Canada counter and show my passport to pick up a boarding pass.
2. Select "One-way". Enter YVR (Vancouver) as "FROM" and SFO (San Francisco) as "TO". Depart on a date of your choice in the future. I'm going with 2017-05-01.
3. Look at results showing you whether each flight is mainline Air Canada, regional Air Canada Express affiliate (with regional affiliate identified) or Star Alliance partner flight operated by United.
4. Ask yourself whether you had to buy a ticket to see that.
You can do this with other airlines, too. For example, go to delta.com and ask for a one-way from SFO (San Francisco) to AMS (Amsterdam) on 2017-05-11. When I do that I see the first option listed is a direct flight, which says "DL 9389 is operated by KLM." Further down I see one with a connection in Paris which tells me "DL 8456 & AF 1440 are operated by Air France." There's one with a connection in Los Angeles which tells me that for the the SF-LA hop, "DL 4915 is operated by SkyWest DBA Delta Connection."
This is not secret hidden information. In fact, it's the opposite: airlines and third-party ticket agents are legally required to disclose the carrier who will operate the flight, and the US Department of Transportation will fine them if they try to keep it secret.
