Intermountain Rail

Integrating Rail Service Part II

By John Dornoff

In part one I talked about how there is a poor history of integration when it comes down to rail passenger service and that started with the private railroads. Today I will discuss code sharing by airlines which is one system that should be a part of today’s rail passenger system.

Since deregulation and especially in the last couple of years the airlines have gotten really good at code sharing. By code sharing a flight may be operated by one airline but a second airline will also book tickets on that flight and have its own flight number. So even though you booked your ticket on airline number two, you will actually use the gates and fly the plane of airline number one.

Here is one example of code sharing. My wife and I will be celebrating our 10^th anniversary in May. Since we have other obligations that month, we are thinking of taking a trip next October on the Canadian. Our plan is to fly into Toronto and then catch the Canadian from there. Well if you try to book a trip from Salt Lake City to Toronto you will find a Air Canada trip requires you to change planes in Denver or San Francisco. In actuality these are both United Airline flights not Air Canada. However, Air Canada and United Code share so Air Canada can book tickets onto that flight using their flight numbers.

Another example of this is the flight I took from Los Angeles to Orlando on October 30/31^st when I was flying from a conference in Reno to Railvolution in Miami. While I was on a Delta 737-800 the plane was full with people who had flown China Airlines into Los Angeles and this was the continuation of their trip. Their tickets said this was China Airlines flight 4000 or something but in reality it was a Delta flight.

Not only does this fill seats on planes but it also opens up greater marketing opportunities since the airlines are able to promote service to more markets with more flights.

Next in Part 3 we will discuss the Regional Airline Business.

Part 1: Poor Integration History

Part 2: The Airlines-Code Sharing

Part 3: The Airlines-The Regional Carriers

Part 4: How it can be applied to rail passenger service

Part 5: Integration of Schedules

Part 6: The California Thruway: It Can Work

Part 7: The Politics that holds us back

John Dornoff is a principal in the Dornoff Consulting Group.