Article by Chicago Tribune on 19OCT11 reports that UNITED from 01MAR12 will terminate codeshare agreement with THAI, due to low demand.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...,2148868.story

And looks like reservation for the codeshare flight is closed in the system already as well.

Current Codeshare routes:
UNITED operated by THAI
Bangkok – Frankfurt
Bangkok – Hanoi
Bangkok – Ho Chi Minh City
Bangkok – London Heathrow

THAI operated by UNITED
London Heathrow – Chicago
Los Angeles – Chicago
Los Angeles – Denver
Los Angeles – New York JFK
Los Angeles – San Francisco
Los Angeles – Washington Dulles
Tokyo Narita – Chicago
Tokyo Narita – San Francisco

 

I remember for years saving miles on United so that I could make a trip to Kathmandhu Nepal. One of two main routes for this trip is through Bangkok. West Coast USA to Bangkok is quite common, and since Thai airways is a codeshare with United, the BKK-KTM segment should be possible. Sadly, about three years ago I went to book this at least 7 months in advance and there was basically an entire year of unavailability for the BKK-KTM segment. I was forced to use miles for the trip to BKK and then purchase the BKK-KTM flight on Thai with money. Ironically, there were so many empty seats on that flight there was no one even near me. I could have laid down horizontal on any stretch I wanted. What a screwed up system indeed.

Anyway, because of this, it is no surprise that Thai airways has pulled this.

 

Will this have any impact on Thai being part of *A?

 

Considering The UA did not codeshare with I do not this mKing difference.isn't Thai a founding member of star also.

 

I don't think it had anything to do with *A

 

How does this effect opportunities for award travel to SE Asia? Like a previous poster I am interested in KTM, as well as getting to BKK. Lots of KTM availability right now. though I am going next November. Generally, Thai was one of the main sources of saver award travel to SE Asia, is this going to change for us? I would appreciate your insights.

 

Ending the codeshare arrangement should have no effect on awards.

 

The only change is TG flight not carrying UA flight numbers and vice versa.

Sometimes an itinerary with a codeshare flight may ended up being more expensive than an interline fare, which may explains why there's "low demand".

 

This is probably a stupid question, but what difference does it in any way if Thai stays in Star Alliance but stops doing codeshares?

 

What's the advantage to no longer offer a codeshare other than one fewer flight number to display?

Although the advantages to keeping the codeshare might be small due to 'low demand', what does United or Thai have to lose by offering it? I don't really see how it could cost either of them much other than perhaps a bit of paperwork.

 

Codeshares are a marketing tool and are no particular advantage to the consumer. In fact, there are numerous downsides to the consumer with codeshares.

The only advantage of codeshares, IMO, is the potential of two or more price options for the same flight. And the possibility of a lower price on the codeshare than the operator might be providing.

 

As a part of a codeshare agreements airlines will often commit to a minimum number of seats, and may need to pay for those seats if they are not used, and/or below which they may not get sufficient discount/profit share to make it worth selling any seats at all.

I have no idea if that's the case here, but...

 

Whether codeshares matter to consumers either way is debatable, but how would getting rid of a codeshare benefit United?

I think profit sharing is only allowed with joint ventures (such as DL/KL/AF/AZ), not all codeshares.

Maybe there are different numbers of seats allocated to the TG and UA numbers with the codeshare, so getting rid of it can mean that TG and UA can each manage their own inventory better? I could be making this all up, but just another idea I got.

 

Flight number crowding. A four digit flight number fits only so many code shares (and own flights).

 

True but I would doubt this would be the main driver of if UA wanted to code share a particular flight.