Originally Posted by
wanaflyforless
You are right that at this point, there is little chance of star alliance accepting 9W...If LH wanted Jet to join Star and work closely with SN, it might happen.
We should also never write off AI's ability either to blow the *A entry even now or to drop out / get evicted later, which would open up the possibility for 9W.
SN serves most of the biggest cities in Europe. Not much traffic between India and SN's short haul Europe network?
I should have said except UK. Anyway, what I meant was...UK is already well served with direct flights (including 9W), so a connection in BRU won't be competitive. To compete with AF to Paris, or LH to Germany, 9W would have to undercut them seriously in price. Other cities all over Europe: I don't think any one of them has serious traffic, but you'd correctly point out that none has to. After all, the whole idea of hubs is that only totals matter. I can imagine the US<->India and Europe<->India traffic adding up to reasonable loads.
And it wouldn't be just about SN cities <--> India, it would be equally about SN cities <--> USA.
Yes of course. That traffic would be good for SN. However, 9W's viability will depend on India routes. They can't be flying BRU-USA if they don't have enough pax to/from their home turf.
I agree with you on the important of providing lounge access with enough capacity to be inclusive at BRU...I also agree that the BRU transit experience would need to be worked on to make it a winner...
Thank you. To win, 9W will either have to be significantly cheaper than others, or provide a significantly better experience. I don't think it is in 9W's genes to strive to be a low cost carrier (despite their domestic flirtations with the concept), so they'll probably succeed or fail in the "better experience" department.