Shimon

El Al couldn't be worse for an alliance than Ethiopian? Ok, sure, Ethiopian has fuel stops in Asia so it is a little more than just ADD.

ByrdluvsAWACO

I really don't understand the comparison.

TWA884

joshwex90

CEO and CFO not on the same page? Or are one of the "many factors" that LY is Jewish?

ELY001

Shkedy always seems to be blaming everyone but himself for his failures as a manager. He blames the fact that EL AL is an Israeli/Jewish company for his inability to gain them admission into an alliance as oppose to its poor hard product and services, amongst a plethora of other issues we discuss extensively on this board.

Shkedy also blames the global financial crisis and the Israeli government (for implementing the open skies policy) for EL AL's current financial troubles when in actuality tourism and business travel to Israel have reached all times highs in the midst of this global crisis while airfares going there remain prohibitively expensive, and LY's load factors are consistently near or over 80 percent. Recently, Shkedy even blamed the pilots union for EL AL's troubles because it's chairman, Captain Nir Tzuk, refused to accept greater concessions until management is restructured and also faces the same level of cutbacks the front line staff have endured.

All of this does not surprise me. This man was commander of the IAF during the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and I remember watching an interview with him where he blamed the vast network of tunnels and vegetation of South Lebanon for the IAF's failure to effectively stop the rocket fire, as if he was caught with those two facts by surprise and did not have years to prepare plans to counter them.

If EL AL is to survive and thrive as a private enterprise, the board needs to appoint executives who spend their time coming up with solutions rather than excuses.

yosithezet

Air India certainly had a worse hard product and services when they were accepted as a candidate to Star Alliance so I don't see why this would prevent candidacy.

GUWonder

In-flight product and service of questionable status have not been a strong barrier to joining Skyteam. And Star Alliance have had LCC service elements as part of the picture (e.g., on SK short-haul, even getting a free glass of soda has a troubled history). Oneworld has taken in AirBerlin, which is an LCC of sort that is less LCC than SK on some routes.

There are other barriers to joining major airline alliances, but LY's in-flight product and service aren't going to get LY into one of the big three alliances or keep them out of one of the big three alliances.

entropy

Well, frankly, LY's substandard product will fit in well with AF/KL/AZ in SkyTeam. How weird is it that DL is actually the best carrier in that alliance?

*A's most rigid flippers being UA/LH/SQ with relatively high standards internationally (except LH, with lie flat in C). They seem to have the most solid coordination and quality of the 3 alliances, and UA makes bank on EWR-TLV, I doubt they want to dilute it.

OW probably has the least consistency in its members, ranging from garbage to excellent.

yosithezet

So with those things taken into account, i would say that it is very likely that political issues keep LY from joining an alliance. But my guess is that they haven't done anything significant in order to try to join one.

LatusElAl

It would not surprise me that airlines from hostile-to-Israel countries might indeed serve as a barrier to join an alliance. Having said that, I have NO DOUBT that it is LY management's lack of professionalism - more than any other factor - that has kept the alliance membership elusive for El Al.

Not only that . . . the AA codeshares, which is the next best thing to an alliance, have still not been re-instated even though we are back to FAA Cat 1 for a while already. Want to bet that there isn't so much as a project manager over at LY to work on it!?!

ELY001

Latus,

I think you are absolutely correct in your assessment of LY's management's lack of professionalism being the greatest impediment to the company being able to join an alliance. I also think cost has something to do with it as well. EL AL would have to expend a considerable amount of money upgrading its operations and technological infrastructure to coordinate with alliance partners. Given how cheap LY is and management's preference to put profits in their own pockets rather than reinvest back into the airline, this is likely another major contributing factor. Is the fact that LY is Israeli/Jewish a factor in preventing its admission into an alliance? Perhaps, but it's not the only one or even the most overwhelming one. Besides, Israel as a whole has thrived in the face of very strong opposition to its very existence, certainly EL AL could do the same.

GUWonder

One or more the big three airline alliances may find that there is a risk in not being able to pick up/retain some MENA and some other Asian players if LY were part of the alliance today. I think those concerns aren't what they used to be.

That said, either way there are ways for LY to enter into deeper partnerships with the big players in one or more of the big three airline alliances or join up with various other airlines while stopping just short of actual membership in any of the big three airline alliances; however, LY management hasn't even delivered on that possibility as of late. That failure to deliver on deep partnerships with other airlines is not a surprise given it would involve costs/investments and risks for LY that LY management may not consider worthwhile.

Intra-company politics and intra-alliance politics is almost certainly more the basis for LY's current situation with hooking up with other airlines than any inter-governmental political machinations on a state level.

I'm not sure what I would make of China Airlines and EVA from Taiwan in relation to this situation, but the former airline became a member of Skyteam while the latter airline is scheduled to become a member of Star Alliance this coming year. And PRC airlines joined the three major airline alliances even before the ROC airlines joined any of them.

Bernie2012

Look, if you see the name of this topic alone, someone tries to politicise it already. And pulling that card won't help to join any alliance either IMO.

I can't imagine any of the leading carriers of any of the 3 alliances to make such decision against LY easily, and then looking what they bring to the table, what market do they open for any other alliance?

All have their flights to TLV. In the environing markets, LY or TLV are not brands that pull very well (I say this without any judgment, I think that is a fact, I had on X-Mas wine from Upper Galilea on the table).

Take a map, look around TLV, where are all the destination/routes you open with LY for any alliance?



Edited for comparision: all direct destinations from all airlines departing from TLV:



Competition to DXB? Benefit? Disadvantage with all the extra tight security on TLV?

Do they really want to have for the same security reasons excess numbers of transit traffic there? Which you btw. can't really expose to TLV styled/required enhanced security. (But they are smart, security is done as far as I experienced, by beautiful ladies, just to make the suffering a bid easier if they run away with your laptop or the enhanced interviewing about visa stamps/marks from environing countries). No good for a transit hub IMO.

I keep my fingers crossed that the smart people in IL (which already do great things by the smart power of civil disobedience), will prevail in a couple of weeks and hopefully in 10, 15, 20 years, things have been solved and normalized in that part of the world. As said, without any personal judgement, just reality as it is.

orbitmic

With all due respect, I think that it is a rather absurd comment. I'm not sure if you happen to have flown long haul AZ J recently, but it is certainly the best long haul J product of any European airline, significantly superior in both hard and soft products to the likes of BA and LH. For Star, LX has a very good J but less so than AZ, and OS and TK have excellent soft product but average hard product. (AZ and AF also have very good PE although TK is better in my view).

The new long haul J products of Skyteam's MU and CZ are also miles above the long haul J of Star Alliance's Chinese partner CA, and to be honest, I much prefer DL long haul new J (across its aircraft variations) to UA's new J, which is much improved over UA's old J but has far less pleasant configurations.

In short, I think that your perception of Skyteam's airlines' qualities is very much mistaken and I could conversely mention many bad Star Alliance airlines.

Back to topic, I agree with others that the main reason why LY may not be as courted by the three large alliances as they may want is neither related to service quality nor to geopolitics, but to the fact that they don't add enough. Specifically, because of Israel's situation, LY would only make sense as a partner if they served as a 'bridge' between America/Europe, Asia, and Africa, but their Asian and African network are far too limited to allow the airline to play this bridging role. It is a shame as I think that becoming an alliance member would push LY to be less 'random'/more focused in some of their policies and perhaps more rigourous. It's an airline I have a lot of affection for but I do not think that current management does it much justice.

clubman

Must admit AZ's new Magnificat does look rather good, although I wouldn't want to be stuck with a stranger in one of the pairs.