isaac.chambers

Just curious if we are going to see LATAM leave the Alaska partnership now that DL has investment into the carrier and it now leaving OneWorld. I suspect the announcement of the termination of the partnership will come in weeks....with it formally ending in early 2020.

MAH4546

It might not. A condition of the DL/KE partnership was that DL could not interfere with KE’s AS partnership. The same condition would likely apply.

sergent

They said they are keeping their partnerships with BA and Qantas and Qatar. So I doubt they are worried about Alaska. But who knows.

CalanMan

They said they want to keep BA and QF. They didn’t say anything about QR. We don’t know what DL will demand once they have two seats on the LA board. I suspect if they can cast doubt on future partnership with QR, a 10% owner, then they can easily force out AS, which has a much looser relationship.

If AS stays a partner, it’ll be because a court/gov’t requires it (like they did with KE), not because DL doesn’t care about AS. DL has shown it does care quite a bit about cutting off AS wherever can.

tonei

Delta’s CEO said it will take 12-24 months to secure regulatory approval, and LATAM has to give one year’s notice to even leave Oneworld, so I wouldn’t expect any imminent changes to the partnership.

isaac.chambers

How is DL doing in Seattle? I know they came in and saying we are going to be Seattle's airline. Curious if the DL/AS partnership could be rekindled if it helps DL in the fight against B6 in BOS. A wild idea...but LATAM was a shocker to a lot of people.....

isaac.chambers

Given the terrible partnership with AA right now and AS.....it would be amazing to see AS / DL shack up again....and give me access to eastern Canada! But wishful thinking.....

safari ari

Doubtful, they're trying to make SEA become a big intl gateway to Asia, and they're pouring in as much money as possible to win every inch in SEA. I think they're still only up to almost 16% of market share, but from where they came from 5 years ago you can see they have no plans to just stop.

A321neo

Ba Quantas and Qatar aren’t owned by Delta.

wolfpacktrojan

I know they’re trying, but it’s hard to take SEA seriously as a TPAC gateway for DL when they don’t serve HKG or SIN. CX and SQ took the opportunity to swoop in and offer a superior product, so it’s going to be hard for DL to re-enter those markets in a meaningful way. Perhaps the A350s they’re getting in the deal with LATAM are for this purpose, but it’s going to be a while until they join the fleet.

With that said, there is a 0% chance AS and DL are going to partner again. Im sure AS’s partnership with LATAM will come to an end in due time. DL is going to try and funnel all US connecting traffic from LATAM through ATL, MIA, and JFK.

safari ari

You're correct, the other issue is the International setup at SEA is severely outdated, it should change with the new terminal being built. With that said, they are expanding on the HND route from Seattle and the A350's from LAN may play into them being able to bring back routes that were not cost effective, i.e SIN/HKG. SEA is just a weird place on the WC when you have LAX as a huge intl gateway for US carriers and the rest of the world, SFO as a UA hub, YVR as a AC hub. Not to mention these other intl hubs have a significant amount of money from corporate contracts and personal travel. But for DL it makes sense as they are trying to build up their domestic routes to feed, presumably, an intl expansion.

The fact that they used the 767 for a majority of their intl routes has always made me laugh though.

felicidad76

Well I hope they get back to AA and fight off Delta domestically. It would be amazing to expand AA and AS cooperation to the max as permitted by law due to merger with Virgin America.
But that would be a great turn of events as AA would benefit having storng AS on the west coast

wolfpacktrojan

Agreed. Their incoming A330-900NEOs should be a massive upgrade over the current 767s flying TPAC soon enough. I just don’t think SEA will ever be for DL what SFO is for UA.

With the AM relationship gone because of DL and now potentially the LATAM partnership as well, AS isn’t going to have much coverage in Latin America. Do they partner with someone like Interjet down the line?

ashill

Wishful thinking indeed. It's not at all clear to me how AS's handful of flights to the west coast would help DL fight B6 in BOS. It's even less clear to me what this has to do with LATAM.

eponymous_coward

They’re doing fine, and removing an incentive to switch by being buddies with AS makes about as much sense as sending a Brinks truck full of dead presidents to AS/AA/UA corporate HQs, AS’s massive 7 or so flights a day at BOS notwithstanding.

Back on topic, the LA partnership will go away eventually. Oh well.