CXBA

you are validating my past assertion. No direct flight China to Brazil, if you want keep * as your alliance. Don't think it goes to Madrid, as it is a OW hub. This also represent once more the mess that * has become, thanks to the adherence to LH interests.

some suspect that TAM accession to * was in reality done to push LAN towards the acquisition, given that it happened few months after the entry in *. So it may well be that TAM recognized well in advance that getting in * was not in their best interest, otherwise they would have tried to get in bed with TAP or extend their relationship with US members of *. Cueto has said many things during these years, but he never strayed from the relationship he has with OW.

the point is that * neglected developing SA market, and when LAN bought TAM they were more or less taken with pants down. Through the years LAN has built a strong network in the continent, well connected with US (through AA) and with Europe (through IB). Codeshares are in the work with the asian members of OW, and thats pretty much closes the case. TAM would have been blind had they choose to became LH water porter in the continent.

i think you've never been too much in FRA, or even ZRH. FRA was once a good airport. Only the stubbornness of LH making it a hub for all * flights has made it a zoo. Same could be said for CDG, while the secondary airports such as AMS, ZRH and LIS are not well suited for connections (i talk by experience, having done my lot of transfers and connection through all of them). I agree partially in regard to LHR, since * is currently hosted in Terminal 1 and 2, but given they are gonna be torn down and rebuilt this should improve over time. Anyway he real gem of LHR is T5, that at the moment is the best airport terminal in Europe, and is where both BA and IB are based

in my opinion, having failed once to get their hands to TAP, Avianca have put themselves in a corner. Portuguese will treat another offer from them with suspicion, while giving time to more suitors to come. LH is definitely out of the situation, lest they want be caught in antitrust proceedings, that leaves ST and OW as possible suitors. I can see a lot of synergies for example between IB and TAP, but even QR or again LAN could consider an acquisition or share purchase. On ST side, bar AF/KL for the same reasons as LH, EY or perhaps DL may inject some capital. I do not see TAP remaining in * for long.
The point of this reply is to confute your assumption about * being the best option for Brazil. It was never and will become increasingly the worst option. ST is also ramping their options for SA and at the end they will become the second best option behind OW, once they secure GOL as a member. * was clearly in damage control mode after the Chilean court sentence, but now is clear they will never be able to mount a significant challenge to OW and ST. You will have to thank the incredible shortsightedness of LH for having never attempted to make * the best option for your travels.

geoshina

CXBA.. I really like the way you write. It feels almost right IF (and a extremely huge IF) most of the things you said were actually correct. Sorry to say that, but they are not, and I would advise you to either talk to more brazilian people who travels frequently or come here and see for yourself. So that you can really experience the reality and not only politics that may have happen on the other side of the world or hemisphere. I don't want to be harsh at all, but reply after reply it gets clearly that you made your "business man" idea to reach another level. It feels that you are the diehard fan, but of OW (which I could see why).
I said first and will say again. Star Alliance is still the best option for Brazil right now.
I cannot understand what you mean by mess. And why to blame LH? I cannot really get it at all. Management and decisions surrounding their partner companies such as Swiss I can get it, but not the other ones. I don't think Munich airport is crowded or anything but a decent one to be while making a connexion.

"It was never and will become increasingly the worst option"
"You have to thank the incredible shortsightedness of LH..."
"... now is clear they will never be able to mount a significant challenge to OW and ST"

Man.. I raise my hands to you for being so wrong. These phrases I highlighted are just some of parts that made your reply not valid at all .How can you say things like that?
I am not here to defend LH or other company. Man.. it is just reality check! Right now for the millions of brazilian people who travels, specially to Europe, Star Alliance is still the best choice. A brazillian citizen and member of TAM miles program have the choice to choose which airline you want to travel among lots of them, and not only two (terrible Iberia or British Airways with a great service but expensive fuel taxes). IF the airlines that make part of OW decide to fly to Brazil on a regular basis, than ok. But right now getting just two european OW flights a day in the most busy airport in Brazil is rather ridiculous. Can't you see?
I get the love thing for OW that you posses, but man.. you got blinded by it. I would not give a damm about SA if it wasn't to get thing worse here in Brazil by having the main brazilian airline to join a STILL minor (but bigger than Skyteam) alliance. That's it.



Some other quick points:
1-) Air China really flies to Brazil via Madrid - Barajas since 2006. (go check that and see it for yourself... Start complaining about a flight from another alliance getting into OW territory lol)
2-) I fly to Europe 6 to 7 times over a year. Mostly to Portugal, but I usually(and it is so damm good to have choices, you know) go via LH - Munich. I could go by TAP, but I'd rather get the executive class (and sometimes first) experience of this airline ( but I still prefer Swiss). And I can also go to Frankfurt by JJ. Choices, again, you know? When TAP starts updating the whole of their planes (and get the A350) then I will definitely fly with them.
3-) Iberia has marketed their brand (at least here in Brazil) as "cheap to buy, terrible service". So it has such a bad reputation that the majority of people prefer to pay more money and have better flight experiences. Better and more confort interior and better treatment from the crew . Once again, options. Their neighbor TAP is considered better (and has recently updated some of their old A340 interior) by most of the people, and have the advantage of speaking the same language.
4-) With OW, no more direct connections with Africa. I mean South Africa and South African airlines. But OW is so good that if I eventually decide to go there, I can hop on the British on Iberia flight, then make the joyful and wonderful conexion till South Africa. How great is that? But wait I minute, I can also go take TAM to Europe! Problem solved! And no more Air Canada... but hey, American Airlines will probably solve this one.

CXBA

i think at this point we can agree to disagree. I stand behind what i've say in past posts, and still do not see the advantages for a Brazilian, or South American that * brings. Of course people do have preferences, however because my own company never fell for any alliance gimmick, it was always the cheapest option to travel anywhere and so I do not root for anyone. AF, AZ, LH, TP, CA, BA, CX... you name it and i traveled with. I'd wish your best in continuing arranging your travels with *, but at the same time i think you're losing yourself a lot of opportunities because of your insistence on a single alliance that the current development definitely discounts as the weakest in the region.

Kachjc

I think a lot of Star Alliance Fans are annoyed Oneworld now dominates one Continent( out of 7)

and they know that Avianca Brazil is no replacement for TAM

Fact is Oneworld won in SA

but is still the sore loser in Asia- which is where the fastest rates of growth in traffic

So do not fret- Star Alliance is still a hell of a lot bigger than Oneworld!!
anyways 2014 seems to be a big year for Oneworld- massive expansion

JohnAx

Having one carrier so dominating a continent begs for competition.

Ambraciot

By what metric? With the pending changes oneworld is larger by: passengers, revenue, revenue seat miles, available seat miles...

It's pretty clear that by the time JJ finishes moving oneworld will be indisputably the largest of the three alliances and *A will be the smallest.

rurouni212

This is not correct.

Star currently reports approximately 670 million passengers annually. Oneworld reports approximately 341 million. Given that TAM (37 million/yr) and USairways (66million/yr) will switch and adding all pending members for Star and Oneworld, Star will have about 575 million passengers annually while Oneworld will have about 467 million annually. I grabbed these numbers directly from the alliances websites.

The story for revenue passenger miles, daily departures, fleet size and destinations are also similar, Oneworld will make an immense jump and significantly close the gap with Star Alliance and Skyteam. However, Oneworld will still be the smallest by most, if not all, quantifiable metrics.

CXBA

the crux of my reply was not centered on who "won" or "lost", but the singular insistence on TAM switching as an unwelcome situation for his country at all, when it was clear all along these years that * was a sub-optimal choice for both business and leisure travel. The set of examples he gave was demonstrating this instead of verifying his clear cut conclusion (having LIS as a connecting point to go to JNB, or the example about flights from China to Brazil).
I am also noticing that OW the past two years had had a big stride in terms of members, and almost all of them are coming from *. I hope the trend continues, as I most like a situation when the 3 main alliances are of similar strenght and offerings.

1010101

Great few months for Oneworld... MH, UL, QR, US and now LATAM all joining up.

* may well be bigger...but really once this is all finished, who wants to fly to any of their destinations or on any of their airlines? Im quite glad OW stuck to its guns and didnt go inviting anyone and everyone to join up regardless of quality. It seems to now be paying off.

Kachjc

That is right
the only metric Oneworld is the largest is by corporate/premium passenger numbers- which matters most to the airlines

and possibly the ratio of lounges to passengers carried-OW has the highest amount of Lounges

Ambraciot

Okay, indisputably was a bit strong, but there are several factors not captured in your analysis above that suggest oneworld will be larger by the time JJ joins in 2014.

For one thing the *A website numbers seem consistently high/inflated, for instance they claim 80 million passengers for US and 147 million for UA versus the 66 million you site above and the 140 million UA reports. That's a 20 million passenger discrepancy for just the two largest *A members. The alliance website numbers also fail to capture recent changes, for example IAG's numbers don't correctly capture the increase from BMI and Egyptair's numbers don't reflect their traffic plunge since the revolution.

But more significantly I think there are some other major changes on the horizon that won't take as long to complete as JJ moving over. Without US and JJ the current *A carriers had fewer passengers in 2011 and 2012 than the current skyteam members. Oneworld and its pending additions are nearly the same size and have grown by over 50% in a matter of months, that momentum does not yet seem spent.

rurouni212

Looking at the star alliance website versus the fact sheet, there is a discrepancy with US airways numbers. What the actual numbers are I cannot say for certain. The fact sheet, however, does state that it's accurate as of November 2012, so I'll go ahead and assume it is correct and that the website itself simply failed to update.

Since the star alliance fact sheet is dated Nov 2012, I am left to assume that the information is relatively recent and that unless the events in question took place after january 2012, the fact sheet presents a reasonable representation of current passenger numbers.

For the Oneworld numbers, the info is dated Feb 22 2013, but a few weeks old. The BMI switchover occurred in April 2012, so much of BMI's numbers should be with IAG, and even if they were not, BMI adds no more then a few million and certainly no more then 8 million.

Given the TAM and US Airways switch, Star Alliance numbers will indeed be relatively close to Skyteam numbers. However, Oneworld members and pending additions are not anywhere close to the same size as Skyteam. Oneworld, not counting TAM or US Airways but counting Sri Lankan and Qatar, report 360 million. Adding 117 million for TAM and US Airways puts Oneworld at 477 million. Adding 8 million for BMI puts oneworld at 485 million. Skyteam reports 552 million as of Nov 2012 and this figure does not include Garuda Indonesia or any other potential Skyteam members. Star will have approximately 560 million (included EVA addition). Even if I were to remove all of Egyptair's numbers, this would still leave Star with approximately 550 million.

Given the above numbers, all pulled from the alliance websites, I cannot agree that Oneworld will be the biggest alliance, at least for the short to mid term.

Edit: Having looked at United's reported numbers, there is a 7 million difference. However, even if this is removed, Star Alliance is still bigger.

keepssmile

Personally I don't want to see OW become the largest alliance... stay elite

Kachjc

well airlines care about premium passengers and Oneworld wins on that.

geoshina

Someway somehow we are not understanding each other. If´s my bad english I apologize for that. I´m trying to explain and it would be much easier in portuguese, for sure. But anyway, I´ll try again:

First, give me five (5) examples of how Star Alliance was a sub-optimal choice for Brazil, and give me (5) examples of how One World will be better for Brazil when connecting to Europe, please.

About JNB, I said that as a suposition of what would happen for a OW user in Brazil, since a Star Alliance one can fly on the daily Star Alliance/South African GRU-JNB. Are you able to see that? Is this a example of "sup-optimal choice?". Clearly not.
I am complaining about how the amount of seats offered will be drastically less whenever a brazillian guy flying JJ and being loyal to it its alliance tries to go to Europe. Once again, OW provide less than 10 flights a day in the Europe-Brazil section whereas Star Alliance provide more than 20 flights a day. How sup-optimal is that? Me and the thousands of people who live here are wondering how we can all travel, the whole country, using only JJ 4 daily flights, British 2 daily flight and Iberia 2 daily flight a day to Europe, being that it will be (hopefully this will change by 2014) the only national airline which has a major role here.

Of course foreign people and OW users will have pretty much the whole country to go to (from Porto Alegre to Manaus) so I can understand how good it will be for them.

In the end, we are going to lose a huge network that Star Alliance offers.