An Unholy Alliance?

It is far from certain that the British Airways - led Oneworld global airline marketing alliance is about to collapse, but the men from Waterside are preparing members such as Qantas for the worst.

Waterside, British Airways's headquarters near London's Heathrow airport, has been leaking to selected London media that the unthinkable might happen. A similar process of managing forthcoming bad news has been under way in Dallas, headquarters of American Airlines, and Oneworld's second most important member.

British Airways, which owns 25 per cent of Qantas, is prepared to ditch Oneworld because the market growth it sought with American Airlines has failed to eventuate.

http://www.afr.com.au/features/20001...2000Oct29.html


Also interesting comments about Star Allliance changes from Australia. With Ansett 747's leased from Singapore Airlines about to compete head to head with * partner UA on the lucrative Trans- Pacific run.

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~ Glen ~

Thats news I also heard.

Oneworld is working well for everybody involved, but BA and AA. For them, being the key players in the alliance it has not achieved what an Airline Alliance is about to achieve: to attract new customers, to penetrate new markets and to achieve economies of scale.

Why is obvious.

1. British politics are just not able to give into the Americans and without Open Skies comes no Antitrust. And without it AA and BA makes no sense at all.

2. BA made a mistake by even considering having the Northwest/KLM AA threat in the boat. American has truly realised by that and a lot of operational problems, especially at Heathrow, that BA is not as comitted as they should be. The same is valid for the AA liaison with SR.

Oneworld is not going to die, because the problem are BA and AA. On both continents Oneworld is still in a good position to find another partner. And as I heard it, BA is the one having the real pressure here. They bring a global network connecting Europe and they have Quantas. But isnt Quantas on the other hand the reason why Oneworlds problems in Asia are that severe? And isnt BA the problem for Oneworld not gaining additional marketshare on the important Atlantic routes?

And thats the rumour: Onworld kicking BA out, getting an Aviation company like SAir into the boat to play Europe (and be real guys, with Sabena, Swissair and Air Portugal the access to Europe will be superb - and real competition would be back on the Atlantic. Swissair showed earlier with Delta and SIA what good alliance partners they are). Also they would bring SA and with it access to South Africa. Comitted to buy a share in Thai they would also help Oneworld to weaken Star in South East Asia.
And still there are other airlines in Asia looking for strategic partners.

Conclusion: Its balltime and AA is doing what they are best in. They put pressure into the game and they will either force BA to commit or they will force them to leave Oneworld. One way or the other, just another kick back for BA. I am strongly convinced that BA does today not have a real strategy what to do and where to be in three years from now. And this is very, very sad...

As a casual observer, BA has no strategy to do anything properly, anywhere, with anyone at anytime. Apart from that it seems to have an abysmal flyer plan for Brits, who SHOULD be the core of their FF numbers, but fly everyone esle instead. Good stuff BA! For 40 quid Sir Richard Branson would buy it.


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~ Glen ~

Here's today's buzz:
http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cn...egory=Aviation

And:
http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cn...egory=Aviation

Can someone explain to me just how BA has tried to make this work?

Throwing constant uncertainty out there with the whole NW thing (although I understand that BA couldn't tell all due to the way negotiations work).

They maintain code share relationships with HP - I tried to get SJC->LHR and died when it put me on an HP SJC->PHX flight! I don't know of one BA/AA codeshare.

They impose their usual host of bizarre fare restrictions over not only their own program but also at least AA and QF suggesting that compromise is not something they like.

They still maintain a BA/QF only policy on some lounges.

There's nothing wrong with a bit of individuality and I am not saying they should get rid of all the above - but make an effort to look allied!

Supposedly, BA also refused to help AA keep CP around. I am not 100% sure on this but its not friendly if true.

They are not going to get anything out of it if they don't put anything in! I suspect they are having plenty of their own problems as it is - losses in Europe etc.

Of course, a relationship is a 2 way thing. AA ain't no angel.

One more thing, can people keep their hat on? Realistically, this does seem to be the same bit of news coming up all over the place. There doesn't seem to be a fresh basis to any of the articles just a slightly different approach.

The again I do agree with one of those articles that was linked of this thread in the * board (see http://www.thetrip.com/completetrave..._4827,00.html) - BA/AA pulling in SAir group seems to make a whole lot of sense right now.

Which lounges do BA still maintain a BA/QF only policy in?


Thanks,
Nick

I could be a bit mistaken (but to err is only human ) here but what about arrivals lounge at LHR? Isn't it for BA elites and BA/QF 1st/biz pax only?

Merry, the lounge to which Spider refers to is the one I was using as the basis of my comment. I also admit to phrasing my comment to include others, not that I know of any others, just in case there are other ones I do not know of.

Of course, you are by far the best person to confirm this on these boards.