Originally Posted by
TWA Fan 1
That's odd since *A member CO flies a daily non-stop EWR-HKG, a daily non-stop EWR-NRT (as does *A member ANA, albeit from JFK), and 5 daily non-stops to LHR (plus a codeshare on VS, even though VS is not in *A).
I am not saying that this alone would make CO the "choice of I-bankers" if there is really such a thing anyway, but it's certainly not accurate to say that *A is not present in these markets.
I don't think that's quite what he said though. It's difficult for CO's 4x 757 and 1x777 on EWR-LHR to compete with the capacity of AA (and now BA) on that route. Last minute seat availability can be a very important part of a corporate deal and AA can provide this in J because of the greater capacity and the ability to roll up to F.
OneWorld has 3x daily to HKG (one is a 1-stop) vs. 1x on CO, and uses larger aircraft.
But CO has nonstops to both PVG and PEK which are increasingly important as China continues to grow. And SQ to SIN which is also an important financial capital.
This all being said, I don't think the corporate travel departments focus so much on the alliances. They negotiate with the individual airlines and choose those that best meet their needs. This includes nonstop destinations, product offering, seat availability, and importantly, PRICE. And often corporate negotiated fares can be route-specific. A firm might have a blanket 15% off published fares but a much deeper discount on certain key routes where they guarantee a specific volume. Roughly 10 years ago, the company I was working at (big investment bank) paid about $1500 r/t for J on NY-London and $4k for F because there was a LOT of traffic between the two cities. And this was in the days before cheap I/Z fares.
Originally Posted by
joejones
However, if you are getting paid premium class for your travel, airline loyalty is not a very important issue. You get most of the perks simply by virtue of your fare class, so you take whoever gets you to wherever you need to go with minimal fuss.
Well, not really. The bankers still have to generally travel coach on domestic short/mid haul so elite status and upgrades can be important. And they like to accumulate miles to take the family on vacation, so there is incentive to weight their travel toward one airline. But they still generally don't go out of the way just to stay with their preferred airline.