If there are two countries that have higher standards for maintenance and operations it would be Germany and Singapore. Which would explain LH and SQ. In the SARS example (as unlikely as it might be), since UA would of sold the ticket, and the pax caught SARS, United might be on the hook for the disease. Only of course in the US, as most other countries have a buyer-beware biased legal framework. The flights that are code-shared are ones that extend a flight network strategically. I.e. United code shares only on a few AC flights out of Toronto, but you can be reasonably sure that those flights would connect up to arriving United flights into Toronto. Also quite common is a code share on a flight between two cities normally served. I.e. UA code shares on the AC flight between PDX and YVR (which they don't serve directly.) Matthew On Nov 9, 2003, at 1:24 PM, Alireza Alivandivafa wrote: > > Last I checked, code-share arrangements are the rule, rather than the > exception when a new carrier enters an alliance and they exist as > those carriers > belong to that alliance. I.E. CO dropping the HP deal because they > knew their > future with the NW-DL deal. Additionally, if the thing about > international > carriers is true, why would UA sell seats on LH flights, SQ flights, > or Thai > flights? What if someone who bought a seat on Thai from UA caught > SARS? That would > probably not be a good thing for UA, yet they still sell tickets on > that > airline.