Originally Posted by
PotNoodle
I do not see what AA has to gain by trying to weaken and steal traffic from a Joint Venture partner. JAL is in good shape and AA appears to be doing well from NRT so why would they do this.
You are also over-estimating alliance relationships, unless a JV in place most alliance partners are competitors.
Agree with your post completely, but wanted to point out that AA and JAL have an immunized joint venture in place, so AA metal flights from NRT to all the usual suspects (ICN, TPE, SIN, BKK, etc) wouldn't be stealing traffic from JAL or weakening JAL - it would be weakening the existing AA/JAL joint venture.
JAL is preparing to replace its 763s with 787s to places like SIN (and restoring the early evening flight from NRT, flt 711) and if the AA/JAL joint venture decides that various Asian cities need more capacity or more frequency, JAL is in the perfect place to provide larger planes or more frequencies.