brunos

There has been so much negotiation going on (DL/VS, AFKL, DOT, EU), that it is hard to assign "fault". The rumor is that there have been a lot of threats and carrots from the airlines as well as huge lawyer bills.
But it is likely that it be an AFKL requirement.

NickB

Let us not get confused. The range of tickets themselves has not changed in the slightest. The schedules have.

Of course, you DO mind because the moving of the aircraft means that DL no longer fly the route and therefore the itinerary is no longer available to you. Conversely, it may be that someone elsewhere who used to be unable to get an itinerary involving a JV partner because the route was operated by VS will now be able to,

AIUI, not necessarily if the ticket is issued by a third party. In any event, if you really want every single I dotted and T crossed 'just in case', AF and VS do not interline on commercial fares, at any rate not on SEA-PAR itineraries (I do not think that they have any commercial fare allowing any interlining on any route but let us be conservative)

An abstract interline agreement is meaningless without fares to which it apply. AFAIK, VS and AF do not interline at all on any commercial fare. They do not even on HKG-PAR, for instance, where there is no JV issue whatsoever.

NickB

No, that is not what needed to be demonstrated. What needed to be demonstrated for your assertion to be true was not that one individual in one particular situation is negatively affected but that JVs generally affect individuals negatively. This is still demonstrandum as of now.

Where does this notion come from that just because an airline participates in two different JVs, those JVs need to be merged?

VS does not participate in any alliance. They do not participate in any JV other than the one with their parent company. The JV with VS is designed to serve the UK market. VS is not interested at all in the tatl market in general, just the US-UK market. There are pretty good reasons for that. A quick look at VS route network will indicate why. The members of the ST JV are all network carriers with a propensity to serve the wider European market.

One does not need to be a genius to realise that it might not make a huge amount of sense for VS not to be part of the wider JV. One does not need to invoke theories of Machiavellian plotting and scheming by DL to explain why the two JVs are kept separate.

Would it benefit consumers for the two JVs to be joined? Perhaps. It would certainly benefit SEA-Flyer. But even if it is the case that it would benefit consumers as a whole for the two JVs to be merged, it does not follow from this that JVs are anti-consumer. This is an archetypal non-sequitur if there ever was one.

If VS and AF really wanted VS to provide through itineraries on each other, this would have been negotiated. It is not a question of "fault" on anybody's part. Apart from some very specific circumstances that do not apply here, there is no duty on any airline to conclude an agreement with another airline.

irishguy28

Of course there is no requirement that they should be merged. The overlapping JVs would not have been sanctioned if they had not received clearance (which I maintain was a mistake).

But the initial "notion" was that AFKL would be involved in the purchase of VS, if only to overcome the EU ownership rules that Delta were restricted by.

The initial plan was also that VS would possibly join Skyteam and seek to enter the JV as AZ had done a few years previously.

But Delta clearly had second thoughts about the whole thing, and further cannily sought and obtained anti-trust immunisation for an overlapping set/subset of routes for which an existing arrangement - albeit with different members - was already in force, and which, in my opinion, Delta should have been confined.

The airlines love to crow about the benefits to customers when this is a by-product of their own self-interest. But in this case, AFKL (and AZ) were cut out of the action and effectively set up a competing alliance. Which would be great for the customer but by apparently restricting what tickets they actually offer for sale, they are restricting customer choice and competition.

It's probably good for Delta that I am not on a competition committee!

None of which is relevant as Delta is the offending party.

But VS is a strange beast anyway.

But the point is that DL already had a JV covering UK-US.
That they were allowed to carve out a second such joint venture, to me, is anti-competitive.

Does DL/VS compete with fares offered by DL/AF/KL/AZ? Probably not. Which would indicate that Delta can operate as if it has a single immunised agreement - although it doesn't - and not extend to its customers (and those of the various partners) any benefits that flow from that.

DL basically, to borrow a phrase much in vogue in the UK these days, wants to have its cake and eat it.

Reciprocal FFP privileges, lounge access, greater numbers of departures/possible itineraries would accrue to the partners' customers. But DL customers benefit from both networks, so why would they care about their "partners"? Because it would mean they have to share a greater amount with their partners.

So DL's intersection within both alliances gives its customers greater choice and benefits than accrue to the customers of its partners, despite the huge overlap between Delta's agreements.

If Delta wasn't happy for its partners' customers to benefit in such ways, then I don't think that Delta's customers should benefit.

This thread has mentioned Alitalia's desire to run new services. It can't, because its partners don't want to agree.

AF and VS can't do much as anything more than they already have - an interline agreement - would probably need government clearance. They cannot work within the scope of the existing agreements, because Delta reneged on its early thoughts of integrating VS into the existing arrangement.

But I am unclear what sort of agreement, short of this clearly unlikely JV. And as you say, VS doesn't want European feed as it never tried to replace the feed that BD used to feed it.

AlicorporateUK

[@Moderators: please feel free to merge this thread with http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-f...ry-2017-a.html should you consider the latter more appropriate territory to discuss the above]

According to an Italian web-only newspaper, both AF and KL could re-start services from MXP as early as January 14th, even though this move (reportedly supported by a slot request) would only concern the first morning flights to CDG and AMS at [respectively] 7:40AM and 6:30AM. The soon-to-end partnership with AZ currently allows both AF and KL to exploits a number of slots at the other airport, LIN, resulting in a significant number of services to and from their hubs.

G

brunos

We are not in disagreement.
An interline agreement is just a generic agreement that allows a TA to include the two airlines on the same ticket. I apologize for trying here to use layman terms, not legalese, and my terms might be imprecise. Please be tolerant.
This is a simple commercial agreement that needs no government approval. Of course, the practical issue is what fares the system will offer, if any, on some combined itinerary. And now there are none loaded or simply IATA full fare.
As I mentioned before, VS offered reasonably-attractive fares in J to France, including to/from HKG where I am based (connection in LHR could be BA or AF). That has been discontinued since the DL/VS JV. It could be that the agreement simply prohibits any DL/VS ticketing to/from Europe when transiting in UK.

irishguy28

It seems Alitalia's situation is far more precarious than any of us thought; at Monday's board meeting they may be pleased to see a rapid improvement in their revenues...until they realise the shenanigans this weekend that caused the flood of cash to flow into Alitalia's coffers.

The article also mentions the possibility of AFKL's slots at LIN reverting back to their actual owner, AZ, should all the negotiations surrounding AZ go badly.

So maybe AFKL are just letting nothing to chance...

Concerto

By shenanigans, you mind the absurd fare from Florence to Dusseldorf via anywhere except Atlantis being discussed over in the Premium Mileage deals forum? I would have thought that might risk finally bankrupting them!

AurelAF96

I hope AF/KL will stay at LIN because MXP is so far from Milan city center

Xandrios

All flights more than 2 weeks out can be canceled by them without penalty as far as I know. In the meantime they got a whole lot of cash that can they hold on to for months before refunding. The fact that this deal lasts sooo long almost implies that it is intentional..

irishguy28

A sort of "crowdsourced" emergency loan, eh?

It certainly is an intriguing idea

brunos

Very good

irishguy28

I hope it's not, though. One of my tickets is to your neck of the woods - Hong Kong!

Goldorak

How many slots belong to AZ ? I think AF owns some. Because they were serving LIN long before the AZ deal or even Skyteam ?

irishguy28

I don't know - perhaps all of them?

AF and AZ have beenco-operating for far longer than any of the current arrangements and it would be a rather strange slot-lease deal if it was for perpetuity.

The accuracy/thoroughness of the reporting leaves lots to be desired!