I was reading our esteemed publisher Fran’s blog from earlier this week and I left a comment, but since the subject of codesharing gets to me, I have some more to say–and I’d love to hear some input from others.

My mother always told me that if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all, so I’ll address the positive aspects of codesharing first.

- You get your tickets and boarding passes altogether.

- You can just make a single booking.

- You can check your luggage straight through to your destination.

Those are all really motivating. Nowadays you can pretty much get an idea of who codeshares with who (though not necessarily) by looking at what alliance they belong to (SkyTeam, OneWorld, Star).

However, my big complaint about codesharing is that it doesn’t bother to coordinate flight schedules in many cases.

Maybe I come late to this party because I used to fly out of the New York metro airports and you can get just about anywhere you want from JFK nonstop. In that case, I don’t really care if the flight being booked under one airline’s code is actually being flown by a partner; it gets me there.

But I gotta tell ya — having moved to the beach in Florida, where my nearest airport is Tampa, it’s a whole different story. Flying internationally from Tampa is all about codesharing. Plus my last two trips involved flying airlines with limited U.S. gateways (or trying to fly, in one case).

I was flying BMI to England (see my review of BMI’s business class in the May issue of Global Traveler) and their codesharing partner was United. So I was booked straight through TPA-ORD-MAN. However, the TPA-ORD leg involved a 10-hour layover! The next flight would have only allowed a 1-1/2-hour layover, which was considered too tight (and I agree). I’m sorry, but my feeling is, if your “partner” requires a 10-hour layover, find a new partner!

Plus, United didn’t seem to have a clue about BMI. When BMI’s phone lines were down for the night, I called United for info and they didn’t have any. Shouldn’t a “partner” have a clue?

I’m heading for Poland this summer, and I’m planning to fly LOT, which is another carrier with a limited number of U.S. gateways. I looked up flights from Tampa and they all want to take me through Chicago, with a long layover, via United, who is also LOT’s codesharing partner. But LOT also flies out of JFK, and I can make better time if I fly into New York and make the connection.

Yes, there will be some hassles. I’ll have to buy separate tickets, and that means that if there’s a problem with my TPA-JFK flight I’ll have less recourse, but on the other hand there are more flights on American to JFK from TPA than there are on United to Chicago, it looks like. I’ll have to either use carryon or pick up my bags in JFK and then recheck them in. (On the way back that won’t be as much of an issue since I’ll have to pick them up to clear customs at JFK anyway). Pricewise I might even come out a little better if I can get a deal on the TPA-JFK leg, and I’ll have my choice of airlines to shop for that route.

Codesharing primarily makes airlines look more competitive. Granted it does also make our lives as travelers easier in many ways. But I just hate being locked into these codesharing partners that are really inconvenient, and I wish they’d take their partnerships a bit more seriously. In business, or marriage, or policework, we expect our partner to have our back.

What’s your best or worst codesharing experience? I’d really like to know.

–Mary Hunt, editor, eFlyer