Why codeshare?

[yagoceron]

This is something I frankly don't understand...

If it's to make the passenger believe a company can take you anywhere it is silly as you'll see it is not the case as soon as you enter the plane.

If it's the result of an alliance between two companies, fine but why not codeshare all the flights of the other company?

In any case I used to find it very frustrating to think I was flying with a company and then finding I am actually flying with another I may not be interested in. Now I always check what is the company obviously.

So what are your thoughts about codeshare?

[Rayman]

And you’re quite right, it’s often a mess.

Still it’s very useful and understandable when synergies are based on pure complementary feeding-defeeding flights [e.g. OSL-AUH can be sold OSL-BRU (SN-EY) / BRU-AUH (EY-SN)].
As long as there is a mutual benefit, it is logically fine with me. But a codeshare on the sole BRU-AUH is quite useless for EY and benefits SN only.

The worst in terms of synergies, as the ultimate creativity, as the wheel has been reinvented, is that some codeshares were/are implemented on pure common operated routes (see SN-AZ for example). Wow, this is a typical case in which additional work has to be made up to keep (apparently) some positions busy.

[Bowlie]

This is something I frankly don't understand...

Well it is complicated. A lot of is to do with how the GDS display connecting flights and select fares. This affects how a connection is displayed on the screen, and as we know 99.9999876 (aprox) of sales come from the first screen.

Because of government rules (in USA (now expired) and EU) flights are displayed in the following sequence;

direct flights
on-line connecting flights
interline connecting flights

By code-sharing on connecting flights you get a bump up the screen - and you get a higher priority display from even better interline connections.

Another reason why governments should stop trying to regulate this business.

[yagoceron]

Interesting point, I had no think of that.