Originally Posted by
rurouni212
Thank you -that does mention 305,000 and is dated November 23, so the 1% figure is seemingly correct.
Originally Posted by
rurouni212
In addition, even in a worse case scenario where oneworld membership is bringing in a relatively low number of passengers, how much more of an improvement could air berlin and etihad realistically expect by forcing a switch to skyteam? Sure skyteam is bigger, but air berlin would be sharing similar connecting traffic with czech.
I don't expect Air Berlin to leave oneworld (at least, definitely NOT in the short term). And I have even less of an expectation that Air Berlin would join SkyTeam. In fact, I think it's fairly obvious that is NOT going to happen.
Why would they? At the moment, they are picking up some few passengers from oneworld. That is not going to change despite the earlier EY codeshares, and now the AFKL codeshares, but would most definitely change if they left oneworld. The crossover between AFKL and AB is going to be small, at best. Looking at the routes on which they currently codeshare, there can not be a whole lot of demand for these services. But there is still the possibility that they can expand their collaboration, without requiring AFKL to "leave" Skyteam, or AB to "leave" oneworld. Similarly, AB does not have to "join" Skyteam in order to work with AFKL on further routes - it's already working with them, despite the two being in separate alliances. That just proves it's not necessary for all interested parties to be in the same, let alone any, alliance in order to work together.
The rigid days of alliance membership are coming to an end. (Indeed, for carriers like Etihad, they never existed in such a rigid world where you could only collaborate with your choice of airlines from a limited group, i.e. the ones that also signed up to the same alliance as yourself). Just look at oneworld - Qantas will soon be most interested in Emirates rather than in any of its oneworld "partners". AB is already there, with their main focus on Etihad, not on its alliance partners.
For as long as AB themselves, or paymaster Etihad, decides that having a few hundred thousand passengers a year from oneworld is useful, they will stay in oneworld. When either or both decides that's not useful anymore, they can cut their alliance ties, and still work with AFKL and Etihad - they don't need
any alliance, if they decide they don't need oneworld. If, somewhere down the track, Etihad joins an alliance - and that's a big if, for now - then maybe AB will join that alliance, too. But I wouldn't hold my breath.