Originally Posted by
Traveloguy
It refused to pay the necessary fees to enable connectivity between it and JL. Also it's model was deemed to be too much on the low cost side of the equation (the irony is that BA seems to be following in it's path these days!).
Don't forget the EI has a fair portion of it's shares owned by the dreaded O'Leary camp over at FR so I don't see FR willingly handing over those shares to BA.
I don't think it was so much "refused" but didn't see the point - it would be a lot of money to invest for relatively little benefit in terms of passengers coming from JL and RJ etc. Certainly at a time when cash was pretty thin on the ground for them and the then CEO wasn't looking outwards. As for the low-cost aspect, it didn't bother OW so much when Aer Lingus remained within the alliance, but it was the big reason EI pulled out - for EI the negatives of remaining in OW at that time outweighed the benefits.
They've softened their aggressive LCC strategy in some respects since the new CEO came on board, and realise that point-to-point travellers aren't the be all and end all and that trying to beat Ryanair in that market is a mugs game. They're slightly coming around the point that business/frequent travellers still use them (introducing new flexible fares, refreshing lounges, new long-haul J product, links with United etc). Thinking about alliances again makes sense if they want to follow that line of thinking.