Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
I'm almost surprised that BA doesn't use HKG as a sort of Asian hub with fifth freedom rights since the Brits basically built and paid for the new HKG airport shortly before the handover. OTOH they do have CX as a oneworld partner, while there isn't a *A or SkyTeam partner with lots of service at HKG. Similarly UA could use fifth freedom rights to operate more intraAsia flights.
Fifth freedom hubs simply don't make as much sense as they used to back in the day when Asian carriers were relatively weak and fewer nonstops were possible. Nowadays US and European carriers generally have much higher cost structures than Asian carriers and are at a marketing disadvantage for local O&D traffic. There's also significant operational hassle in running a hub operation overseas -- you need large numbers of locally-based crew and ground staff to do it. Completely unsurprising to me that UA would rather lean on its regional partner NH for all of this. Can't speak for BA though I think they were looking into similar JV arrangements with certain Asian carriers.
Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
Also, AFAIK there's no JV between CX and BA, which is a but surprising as coordination would seem to be potentially beneficial, with BA able to deliver lots of connecting passenger from Europe, just as AA could deliver them from the USA to CX.
This would result in a de facto monopoly on UK-HK air service, so competition regulators would never approve it.