[Wormius]

Originally Posted by cmyden

On most search engines, the airlines usually need to be partners or affiliated in some way (codeshares, alliances, etc). This is because if something happens on a leg of your flight, and you miss your connection, the airlines involved are still responsible for getting you there.

If you booked a ticket with say Flair from Calgary to Vancouver, and then Air Canada from Vancouver to Tokyo...

...Air Canada has zero relationship with Flair, so if you miss your connection in Vancouver, they would have no responsibility for getting you to Tokyo.

And the search engines generally don't want to issue a ticket like that, where the airlines have no relationship, should something go wrong.

BUT, there is something called virtual interlining, where search engines do combine and issue tickets on itineraries involving airlines that have no relationship with each other.

The most well known is Kiwi.com, and they claim to shoulder the responsibility should a connection be missed, and have insurance to get you there.

Occasionally I do see Kayak experimenting with this as well.

So a follow-up question - if not this, what does "Show Separate Tickets" mean then in the context when you do a search on Google Flights?