travelmad478

Not just yet I have been laughing a lot though, reading the DL forum's thread on the recent fuel surcharges imposed on award tickets. The wailing and gnashing of teeth is rather amusing, from the perspective of someone who's been paying upwards of $200/seat for the last four years on every "free" ticket I redeem! My upcoming award trip to Bulgaria cost more than $500...ugh.

HIDDY

Just wondering what the impact of this could have on BA's South American operations.
Will they pull out of flying to South America alltogether and route all passengers through MAD on to IB?

It'll pobably never come to anything anyway, the US regulators shall probably put the kibosh on it.

swissytrader

The latest news is that the JV agreement could be signed in 'last than one week'.

flyboy777

I doubt this would have a major effect on BA's own South American operations (if anything strengthen it - BA being the more premium player). Interestingly, LAN isn't included in the deal or meantioned or OpenSkies. I suppose however, many cheaper fares to South America will come available through AA/IB's huge network.

As for the US regulators, what about the joint Skyteam deal & UA/LH? They're both just as significant.

bazzatel

I'm somewhat confused by the media reports about the South American side of it. Clearly the US DoT have no say in ATI between Europe and South America? Surely ATI will need to be applied for in each South American country? How ill it work?

I guess it will probably mean that BA will be able to route pax through MAD rather than say MIA, something they have always been reluctant to do as they get more revenue from sending pax on their own metal on the TATL segments. May be a good thing: pax get to avoid MIA and other US hubs and IB get a bit happier with BA

TravellerFrequently

Good question - whilst not an expert on the matter, it does seem that there is one rule for some and another for BA/AA.

Is there any real reason that other airlines have gained the relevant approvals and BA/AA have not?

HIDDY

I would imagine slots at LHR have something to do with it?

jabrams72

That was the issue, but with openskies (the rules, not the airline) and slot issues at other airports, such as FRA, that's no longer really valid...

pauleeepaul

I just paid $600 x 2 +320,000 miles for two award tix JFK-CAI in J with GUF2 to FIRST. Very much looking forward to the journey but geez...

TravelBuddha

Combined AA and BA have the overwheming majority of regularly scheduled flights between LHR and NYC, as well as ORD. 18/28 standard flights to NYC daily, and 9/13 flights to ORD. Despite open skies, securing slots at LHR is difficult and expensive, and these two airlines were previously part of the bilateral so they had a head start. ATI shoudl be granted, but will most likely be linkd to something NYC related. They (DOT) could force them to sell slot pairs at both airports for market price and split them up among the other 2 alliances plus VS, but I doubt VS has the aircraft to service more refquencies and UAL sold thier LHR slots a while back (and if you think BA would sell slots to LH at LHR for flights to JFK, well I have a bridge to sell you). Plus if they wanted more they could get them from BMI. It's an interesting issue because the question is how do you level the playing field when some airlines got a very big head start.

travelmad478

This is the reason I resist traveling in anything higher than WT+ on award redemptions. It is just so galling to spend hundreds of thousands of miles and also hundreds of dollars for the award seat.

jabrams72

Update.

According to the pink paper, BA and AA have agreed, but now it's a question of working out IB details before filing.

Mutu

An absolutely valid and well reasoned response. But it seems to me now the EU has authority such that it is US/EU open skies, it is hard to then micro-analyse the UK element and claim dominance.

This forum is flooded with regular flyers who claim they avoid LHR at all cost,they do have other options, and those other options are dominated by one legacy or another. On an EU/US wide basis I imagine AFKLDLNW would be dominant but has ATI (indeed that will be a collaberation between the worlds 2 largest (by revenue) carrier groups)

Traveloguy

I believe AFKL own bits of both NW as well as DL so their financial relationship is also pretty tight quite unlike BA/IB/AA.

Caymanian

But is it fair to level the playing field ? BA got a head start in Britain, in much the same was as Alitalia got a head start in Italy. BA is well run and profitably, Alitalia is not. UA was one of only 2 US airlines allowed at Heathrow.....always touted as the holy grail of the airline world, and what did it do, it sold the slots ! I am not sure any other country would be so concerned about a domestic company having a head start - certainly not the US which doles out vast subsidies to its abysmal airline business rather than letting the free market operate - yes there must be regulation to avoid a monopoly pricing situation developing but the idea that slots must be made available to who ever comes along would surely make for a very unfair playing field.