Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
...some muck-a-muck from EK was quoted as saying that they didn't break off their relationship with CO/UA; UA did. That and they wouldn't mind a USA-based partner. AS is pretty perfect for that; they're not in an alliance but they will pretty much partner with anyone.
Apparently there's bad blood between EK and the US trunk carriers; not sure why, but they don't want EK in an alliance. Perhaps it's pricing policy, or service quality, or perhaps it's because EK wants to take over the world.
But I don't think EK will score significant ex-US repeat business until they partner with a US-based FF program. AS, which collects stray foreign airlines anyway, would be a
great step.
I just went and got a globe and looked at the northern circle route SEA-DXB. It's actually not that unreasonable to connect through DXB to the Far East and Australia -- Seattle will have one-carrier, one-connection service to places like PER and KUL, which could be competitive with hopping to YVR or LAX to begin a long journey; one stop/two planes to most places, versus two stops/three planes at least.