Having booked a flight from Manchester to Cebu with Singapore Airlines, it turned out that the first leg was Manchester to Frankfurt – with Lufthansa… Two separate airlines involved, so what’s the procedure for checking in and getting boarding passes? Called Singapore several weeks ago, and they said check in with DLH at Manchester, which is fair enough; and to advise the check-in desk that the luggage needs to be automatically loaded onto SIA at Frankfurt (which I would have thought would have been done automatically…). But it occurred to me that the Manchester check-in may only give a boarding pass for MAN-FRA, so I called SIA for clarification…
Talk about wading through treacle… Getting the SIA woman to understand the concern was a nightmare…
“Yes, you can book in online, sir.”
“I’m not trying to book in! I just want to clarify the procedure, when, where, and by who the boarding passes will be issued!”
And it went on in this vein for 10 or 15 minutes, with her putting me on hold several times.
“You need to contact Lufthansa with the routing code, sir.”
So I had to ask what on earth a routing code was, and why SIA can’t answer my simple question seeing as the flights were booked with SIA! Very difficult to understand what she was saying, and she seemed totally clueless. Surely to god, SIA and DLH can make it all a seamless procedure between them? She said she’s going to talk to DLH and ring me back in half an hour: 45 minutes later, nothing…
Two and a half hours, and still nothing. So rang Lufthansa: apart from an alleged 2 minute wait turning to 10, they were very efficient… If you check in at the desk at MAN, they will provide boarding passes for all 3 legs; if you check in online, you need to do it with both DLH and SIA. Annoying about the double online check-in, but problem sorted. SIA have been appalling over this, and Emirates may be getting new custom in the future…
