kiwiandrew

apologies for carrying this further OT but a couple of corrections are called for

LX were more than rumoured to be joining Oneworld - as you can see from this press release dated 23/09/2003 they accepted an invitation to join

http://www.swiss.com/web/EN/about_sw...0030923_2.aspx

SWISS has accepted an invitation from the oneworld alliance to become a member of this global grouping of leading air carriers.

less than 9 months later ( and considerably before the deal with LH ) they decided not to proceed with Oneworld membership - please note that at this stage they still intended to continue bilateral arrangements with individual OW carriers

http://www.swiss.com/web/EN/about_sw...0040603_2.aspx

SWISS has decided not to proceed with the envisaged integration of its Swiss TravelClub frequent flyer programme into the Executive Club, its counterpart at British Airways, under the present conditions. The sizeable costs of such an integration and the drawbacks it would bring currently outweigh its projected mid- to long-term benefits. As the abandonment of the proposed integration also means that the bilateral agreement between SWISS and British Airways cannot be put into practice, SWISS is unable to join the oneworld alliance at the present time.

SWISS and British Airways have reached an amicable agreement on how they now intend to proceed. SWISS’s bilateral commercial agreements with other oneworld members remain unaffected by these developments.

it was not until several months AFTER the decision not to proceed with Oneworld membership that the LH deal took shape - refer to press release dated 13/03/2005

http://www.swiss.com/web/EN/about_sw..._20050313.aspx

Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Swiss International Air Lines AG are in constructive negotiations about the take-over and integration of SWISS into the Lufthansa group

IMHO , LH did not pull LX away from OW - BA pushed them away ( the same way that they pushed KL into the waiting arms of AF )

anyway , to get back OT - while I believe congratulations are indeed due for VN , I continue to be astonished that Skyteam have so far failed to recruit MH , an airline that has bilateral arrangments with a number of important Skyteam carriers and whose service , IMHO , knocks the socks off the often overrated SQ .

I know that there are constant rumours that AF keep blocking them but none of the arguments given for blocking them make much sense ( the two most common ones I hear are : 1 / AF is frightened because MH will show them up in terms of service ; 2 / AF does not want to jeopardise its codeshares on the CDG-SIN-Australia route with QF - my response to the former is that speaking from personal experience MH would wipe the floor with AF on any route on which they competed , but look at their route maps , two less competitive/more complimentary route maps would be hard to find , so how would MH be a threat to AF on any route other than CDG-KUL ? In any case , the fact that service on MH outshines the crappy service on KL hasnt exactly put KL off working with them . As for the latter argument , let's get real , exactly how important is the Australia-SIN-CDG market to AF - enough to block an otherwise ideal partner ? Does that seem at all sensible to anyone ? )

I am still looking forward to one day hearing the announcement that MH are joining Skyteam ... but I hope that they do not wait too long , AF should be very careful not to do a "BA" and push MH into the arms of OW