Just about to head off on a business trip which includes Thai, EL AL and Cathay Pacific all on one booking number.

Just about to head off on a business trip which includes Thai, EL AL and Cathay Pacific all on one booking number. I found it amazing that the travel booking agency said the computer system cannot support a Thai, Qantas (EL AL) and Cathay FF number in one booking assigned to the relevant flights. They actually have to call each airline to do this. Why is that?

Suspect the GDS that the agent uses doesn't have the ability to tag each flight independently (or the agent doesn't know how)

Would agree with moa999, and put it down to your travel agent not being fully proficient in their system... (or being SO proficient that they know from experience it's just easier to call each airline).

I'm not a travel agent, but I would imagine constructing a complex flight itinerary on their system (multiple sectors, carriers, alliances, code-shares, etc.) can be convoluted on a system as vast as Amadeus.

It'd be more understandable if it also included carriers that used Sabre, Gallileo, etc, but it's somewhat unusual given that Thai, El Al, Qantas & Cathay all use Amadeus as their CRS / booking engine.

Out of curiosity, is it causing you a problem that it's spread over more than one booking number?

It's only one booking number, not more than one. I found out the ticket is actually issued by EL AL even though the flight numbers are Thai and Cathay for those 2 legs that I fly with those airlines. The other 2 sectors are EL AL flight numbers