Cablegate: Royal Jordanian Airlines Code Share With

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 002564

SIPDIS

FOR NEA/EX AND A/LM/OPS/TTM

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: AMGT EAIR ECON IZ JO
SUBJECT: ROYAL JORDANIAN AIRLINES CODE SHARE WITH
AMERICA WEST

REF: 04 AMMAN 6457

1. Summary: Royal Jordanian Airlines (RJ) finalized a
code share agreement with America West Airlines (HP)
in the fall of 2004 (reftel). The code share enables
USG employees to fly non-stop from Jordan to the U.S.
in compliance with the Fly America Act.
Unfortunately, implementation of the code share has
been troublesome and Embassy Amman currently must
follow up multiple times throughout the reservations
and ticketing process in order to make the code share
work. The two airlines have a long way to go before
this will become a reliable and cost-effective flight
option for USG travelers. End summary.

2. Embassy Amman's travel section has been
experimenting with Royal Jordanian Airlines' code
share with America West Airlines since the inception
of the agreement in the fall of 2004. The code share
is an attractive option for USG travelers because it
allows for non-stop flights between Amman, Jordan and
destinations in the U.S. including NY/JFK and
Chicago/O'Hare. The RJ departure and arrival times
are also more convenient than those of their
competitors; RJ flights to and from the U.S. are
scheduled during the day, as opposed to European
airline code share flights (Delta/Air France,
United/Lufthansa, Northwest/KLM), which are scheduled
in the middle of the night to allow for onward travel
from Europe to the U.S. in the early morning. Embassy
Baghdad's Iraq Support Unit (ISU) located at Embassy
Amman also finds the code share useful since it allows
Iraqi citizen travelers (both Embassy employees and
travelers sponsored on various USG programs) to reach
the U.S. without a European transit visa.

3. Unfortunately, Embassy Amman has not had very good
luck with tickets issued on the RJ/HP code share.
Travelers have arrived at the airport in Amman with HP
code share tickets in hand only to find that their
reservations don't exist in the RJ system. More than
once the Embassy has called RJ to check on
reservations and has been told by RJ agents to call
the HP representative in Amman (even though RJ is/is
the HP representative in Amman.) Moreover, RJ has a
frustrating policy of canceling any reservation that
has not been ticketed within a certain time limit
(unlike European airlines, which allow the Embassy
travel agent to hold reservations up until the last
minute without any penalty). HP also needs to publish
more fare options suitable to the budgets of USG
agencies at post, and should match its published fares
to those of RJ. An additional issue is that America
West, which is based in Phoenix, Arizona, does not
have a network of connecting flights on the East
Coast. Thus RJ/HP code share tickets require the
purchase of onward flight connections to Washington,
DC and other locations on a third carrier, which can
inflate the ticket price. Finally, because RJ
business class is more spacious than typical European
carriers, it is also much more expensive. (Note:
Amman - Washington travel exceeds 14 hours; Washington
- Amman travel does not.) Unless RJ can reconfigure
its cabin to allow for a cheaper business class
option, business class tickets will cost twice the
price on RJ/HP compared to European airlines that have
code shares with American flag carriers. Few agencies
at post can afford the current business class fare on
RJ/HP.

4. Royal Jordanian officials have repeatedly expressed
their desire to capture a significant portion of
official USG travel to and from Iraq via Amman, and
have stated their willingness to address some of the
problems outlined above. Emboff has met with RJ
officials several times over the last month and also
participated last week in an RJ meeting with a
visiting America West official to describe what it
would take to win over our business. RJ and HP both
promised to solve problems with the reservations
system; RJ promised to provide training to its staff
so they are familiar with the code share and capable
of addressing problems; senior RJ officials said they
are willing to field phone calls at any time if and
when their intervention is required; HP promised to
publish more fare options that are compatible with RJ
fares; and HP reported that it will negotiate
reasonable fares on connecting flights to Washington,
DC and other destinations on United Airlines so that
tickets for Amman-Washington travel can be purchased
as a "through-fare." However, RJ officials claimed
that the ticket time limit is a tool the airline must
use in this region in order to confirm seating and
stated that it cannot make exceptions for the Embassy.
This fact alone will complicate the purchase of RJ/HP
code share tickets. Moreover, RJ officials said that
RJ business class service in its current configuration
(full length sleeper class seating) is its most
profitable class of service. Reconfiguration to allow
for direct competition with the more economical
European airlines' business class is unlikely.

5. Comment: Embassy Amman will continue to experiment
with the RJ/HP code share to see if service and
functionality improve over the next few months. If
experience holds true and we continue to see that we
must trouble shoot each and every RJ seat with
numerous follow-up calls, the RJ/HP code share will
likely be viewed as a fall-back option, but one that
may be too cumbersome and unreliable for routine use.
The high cost of business class seats on RJ/HP also
limits the extent to which agencies at post can afford
to use this class of service when it is allowable,
since business class seats on other airlines are half
the price.

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