Originally Posted by
BER Flyer
It's not working like you think it is. Here in europe even Airlines from the same group like the mentioned LH group are fighting over passengers in other airlines areas leading to fierce competition in nearly every european market. It leads to situations were for example Austrian offers very low fares ex east european countries to the US or asia ( via Wien ) when the parent company LH wants 2x more for connections via Frankfurt.
Just so we are clear, you are saying that Austrian is deliberately undercutting LH to pump up their own business at the expense of LH? If it is true that LH is so mismanaged that they let this happen, and if this is common across the other groupings, then I think we might be getting to the root cause of why European per capita GDP is so low...
More likely, what is happening is that LH is trying to steer traffic toward the hubs where they think they can most efficiently serve that particular traffic. IIRC, AF/KL have explicitly stated that they follow this strategy in routing more connecting traffic over AMS and focusing CDG more on O/D. US carriers do this all the time, as evidenced by some of the more hyperbolic statements you see here about DL "routing everything" over ATL.
Originally Posted by
BER Flyer
Every of the larger airline groups is constantly ( not just with a few short promos a year ) attacking the others turf, it's always cheaper flying with LH in J ex London then it is ex Germany. If you want to fly from any european city to the US and are willing to take a connection you have plenty of choices, the days of "flying my flag carrier" are gone as there are only a handful left of them.
Are you suggesting that UA does not compete with AA or DL?
Originally Posted by
BER Flyer
There is no real competition for flights ex-US to europe from european carriers as they are all bound to their joint venture agreements which basicly having the US based carrier setting the prices, but were are having a lot more competion here within europe among the big alliances + the independent carriers like VS.
Okay, let me get this straight... There is no competition in the US for flights between the US and Europe, but there is for flights from Europe to the US? Do these airlines fly only one way? Perhaps it is like the container industry and there are scores of planes sitting in the US after their one-way journey? The supply is the same. It has to be demand.