Air Berlin being forced to leave?
 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...89L01P20121022

Leaving??? do you think this will happen

Topic has come up before. They aren't being forced to leave, at least not yet. While this does raise questions, it remains to be seen if airberlin will make much out of the ties with air france.

As of right now I'd say 50/50. The reason I say this is that with the recent restructuring of their TATL Operations they are focusing on American Airlines Hubs. Specifically MIA, ORD, JFK & LAX.

Is there a reason they would want to leave OW? The feeder traffic from AA must be significant for their operations. They do seem to be constantly cheaper on LAX-Europe routes than AA and BA.

I would think they get more benefit by being in *O as they are the only western European member. Being in *S would severely dilute this.

Like QF/EK, AB/EY and AB/AF can work as additional relationships.

If czech were to go under, and they are hardly the picture of health, I could see air france and skyteam upping the pressure to try to get airberlin to switch

Air Berlin stands to benefit the most if it remains in One world as it already has a relationship with SKYTEAM via Air France KLM and Etihad(not in an alliance).

So it can tap 2 alliances essentially, and succeed

Kind of what Cathay is doing by establishing Star alliance relationships, Air China/Air New Zealand

I think the picture of Air Berlin's health may be even worse than Czech's...

True enough, but they also have Etihad backing them up. Czech currently is standing alone.

Still, I don't think Etihad is in much of a situation to tip in any more money if things go really belly up at AB...

The headline of this article is overinterpreting the interview. Depending on how AFKL's collaboration with EY and AB develops, we can talk about this again in 3 to 5 years (if AB still exists then). Currently AF/KL have only 5 codeshares with EY each, and collaboration with AB is not very deep either. So the whole thing is very much at the beginning and only time can tell.

:confused: What about BA?

western continental Europe.

no sane person chooses to transit LHR

Agreed! However T5 is a pleasurable transit experience IME.. then again I only ever do D-I so not sure how it is for I-I passengers.

The main question is that we do not know if AB will survive...