A Wall Street source said yesterday that Air Canada may be in talks with both U.S. Airways and America West in a deal that may see Air Canada take on international traffic with the U.S. Airways-America West concern handling domestic U.S. traffic.
Something like this would make sense, though I'm surprised discussions are with a Canadian carrier, as it would seem that the value of the existing routes to AC would not be as high as they would be to a high profile US carrier. Meaning, I question whether a lot of Americans would be that interested in flying form the US to Europe on AC vs. a more famililar American carrier or a larger and more familiar international one like BA or LH.
Either way, I've been having a hard time seeing Parker interested in a lot of the international routes, the European ones in particular.
But the value they'd bring in a 3-way deal could net some much-needed cash for a combined HP/US domestic carrier and it would allow the new US/HP to focus more on Parker's proven low-cost carrier model, which would be a stretch with far-flung international routes.
As AC is a Star Alliance member, it bodes well for the new US/HP to remain in the alliance, with the combined domestic carrier feeding the international flights of AC and other alliance parteners. My concern is that without major international routes the temptation for a new US/HP might be to stick with a more pure LCC model and not join ANY alliance. That would be an unfortunate outcome.