Why won't Delta Airlines sell me a ticket for a trip entirely within Canada?
I have really good status and miles with Delta and want to use them to fly from Montreal (where they fly) to Vancouver (where they also fly).
However, Delta refuses to book such a flight - even when I speak to an agent. They are willing to book me on two separate itineraries where I leave Montreal and go somewhere in the U.S. and then on a separate itinerary proceed from the U.S. location to Vancouver. But they won't book it as a single fare - it's two separate fares.
When I asked them why the answer is "you should fly Air Canada or Westjet". When I said "but I prefer you guys" they said "oh, well - we don't do that".
Is this an arrangement they have with Canadian airlines to prevent Canadians from using U.S. airlines to fly within Canada? Or is this some sort of gvt. regulation? Or is this just Delta being blockheads?
Best Answer
This is "cabotage" - when an airline from Country A gets permission to fly from A to B, and from B to A, it agrees not to do domestic flights inside B. Usually the way around it is to use your Airline A miles on a country B airline in the same alliance. (Eg if you had United miles, you could use them for Air Canada flights.) But I don't think WestJet (or any other Canadian airline) is in SkyTeam. [Though as it turns out, you can still use your Delta miles on them, see reirab's answer.] So you'll either have to do the trick through a US city, or use your miles for something else.
For more on cabotage and the rights countries grant to each other's airlines, check out The Freedoms of the Air and the "five freedoms". ICAO is International Civil Aviation Organization -- the organization that all this is governed by.
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