I’ve been traveling a bit lately, and flown on “United operated by Lufthansa” and “Delta operated by SkyConnection”. What exactly does that entail? All the logos and uniforms look like United and Delta…what do Lufthansa and SkyConnection do?
It’s called “wet leasing”. This article explains it better than I can, but basically one company rents another’s plane and crew to handle increased demand or an unexpected mechanical issue or whatever. It can be due to seasonal demand so it might not be a last-minute type of thing.
There is also “dry leasing” where the company just rents the plane from another company and doesn’t get the crew etc to go along with it, just the plane.
Is that what the OP is talking about though? Seems like an internal detail they wouldn’t bother telling you about. I though this was more a code share thing (e.g. when you book a flight through Delta but maybe you’re flying some or all of the legs through a partner airline that actually services that route).
Indeed, when in your booking page it says that, it usually means a codeshare.
See “Delta YYYY operated by Sky Connection”, and you will likely be getting in a plane with sort of modified Delta markings, and people wearing sort of modified Delta uniform/insignia but the pilots, FAs and ground crew will be employees of SkyConnection, and not of the Delta Airlines corporation.
OTOH with the big mainline airlines it often is the case that depending on the scheduling and dispatch situation, the 1 pm flight that is coded as both a United and a Lufthansa flight is flown some times on UAL planes by UAL crews, and some other times on Lufthansa planes by Lufthansa crews. In my experience, the “operated by” line tells you who is really in charge of that flight.
But you also do get the “wet lease” situations happening. Between that and codeshares you have to really pay attention to know for absolutely certain what are you getting into.
If it’s “United operated by Lufthansa” and the crew are in United uniforms, then it is a wet lease arrangement. If it is “United Operated by Lufthansa” and the crew are in Lufthansa uniforms, then it’s just a regular Lufthansa flight doing code share with United. They are totally different arrangements.
As for why they bother telling you who actually operates the flight, it’s just for transparency. Some people might not want to fly with Lufthansa for whatever reason and being told who is operating the aircraft lets them make an informed decision.
The idea of one product or service of Company a being contracted out to Company B isn’t new.
Back in the 80s Chrysler had essentially retooled itself to be a front-wheel-drive only company
(Dodge trucks don’t count 
)
So, assembly of the RWD Chrysler Fifth Avenue/Dodge Diplomat/Plymouth Gran Fury was subcontracted out to American Motors.
Also lets you know where to go to catch your flight. I book with airline A, but the codeshare is operated by airline B. I need to check in at airline B, not A. Sometimes airline A and B are in different terminals (really sucks when you have a tight connection to codeshare flight…).
It sounds like the OP is actually describing two different situations. The first one, “United operated by Lufthansa” sounds like a standard code share, which has pretty much been covered. That is basically just United selling a seat on a Lufthansa flight. If the flight is “operated by” some other major airline that’s usually the case.
The second one, “Delta operated by SkyConnection” is something different. Now you’re getting into regional airlines, like SkyWest, Compass, Republic Airlines, etc. “Regional” is something of a misnomer nowadays, as the bigger ones operate in pretty much all regions of the country. These airlines don’t sell tickets on their own flights at all – their entire business is operating flights on behalf of the major airlines. They fly smaller planes, and the reason for this arrangement is because the major airlines don’t consider it cost effective to fly these smaller planes themselves with their own crews. In this case while the plane will probably be painted with a livery that looks like Delta’s, the plane belongs to SkyConnection, and the crew are employees of SkyConnection. All Delta does is sell tickets, set the schedule, and pay SkyConnection to fly the plane.
This was definitely the case. The flight was a short hop from SLC - OAK (a parabola, with no time spent at cruising altitude). The plane was a Embraer 100 with maybe 75 seats? The colors and uniforms were all Delta.
Tangentially…I’m 99% sure that the flight did not include the usual safety lecture (seat belts, oxygen, exits…) Is it not required below a certain number of passengers?
I think that they are required by FAA regulations for all commercial flights. When I fly on regional jets, the safety briefing is often an audio recording, rather than being narrated by one of the flight attendants (and a lot of regional jets only have one flight attendant), though the attendant is doing the visual part of the briefing (demonstrating the seat belt, pointing out the emergency exits, etc.)
They should have done the safety briefing. Either you just weren’t paying attention or they were breaking the rules. I’m guessing it’s probably the former. If you’ve been traveling a lot that stuff just becomes routine and you tend to tune it out.
A distinct plausibility.
I vaguely remember something about this from a few years back, learning it was called “code sharing,” and was part of deregulation. Seeing @engineer_comp_geek 's post, am I mis-remembering what code sharing is?
Tripler
I had that class ~ 12 years ago.
Richard Pearse seems to have given the best succint description of what’s up.
There are different kinds of code sharing, but it effectively all boils down to Airline A selling tickets on Airline B’s flights.
One reason they might do this would be to fill a “hole” in their network. For example, United doesn’t fly to Prague. But they do fly to Frankfurt, and Lufthansa has a flight from Frankfurt to Prague. So United could code share on the Lufthansa flight, and if a United customer wants to go to Prague, they can route them to Frankfurt, and then onward on Lufthansa’s flight.
Then there are the regional airlines a mentioned before, which can be really confusing to passengers. For various reasons, most major airlines don’t think it’s cost effective to fly planes with fewer than ~100 seats. So they contract with airlines like SkyWest, Mesa Airlines, Compass Airlines, etc., who fly these smaller planes. To create a “seamless” experience experience for passengers, United will have SkyWest paint some of their planes in a modified version of their livery, with titles that say “United Express”. But SkyWest Airlines owns the plane, and the crew is employed by SkyWest. United just tells them when and where to fly, and sells the tickets.