AA and 1W
 

Is it true that AA is leaving 1W?

I regularly speak to people at several of the OW carriers, and so far I haven't heard anything about this.

There are always rumors that OW will split up because of AA/BA problems, but I don't think those have been flaring up recently.

I don't understan the AA/BA business. With all the mergers and alliances today why is AA/BA any different?

Because, between the two of them, they carry more than half the traffic between the eastern US and London. That caused anti-trust concerns in the US and British governments.

These concerns are also the main reason that members of AA's and BA's frequent flyer programs can't earn miles on the other's trans-Atlantic flights, even though they earn full miles on all their flights on any other routes (AA members get miles for BA flights onward from London, BA members get miles for AA flights once they reach North America) and on the other oneWorld partners' trans-Atlantic flights.

the peusomonopoly for lhr-usa is not the reason for the split. (only from regulator's perspective).

regarding not being able to earn transatlantic miles, splitting them would not do any good. but OW is extremely weak in coverage in asia and canada, i think this is the problem they need to solve.

frankly i dont see in any near future aa/ba would leave OW

As of about 5 months ago, BA was in advanced talked w/DL about joining SkyTeam, but those fell through.

As for OW being weak in Asia and Canada, I'll agree with Canada, but not sure I really agree with Asia. CX does provide good coverage. Not nearly as much as ANA and SQ and TG all put together, but I think it's quite decent. And I'd much rather be on CX than on ANA or -- perish the thought -- TG.

I agree that Canada is weak/non-existent, and North Asia is pretty weak (regional flights in Korea, Japan and China), but south Asia is okay, IMHO.

In addition to the CX hub in HKG, CX also operates TPE-NRT, TPE-SEL, BKK-SIN, and SIN-CGK. Also, QF operates a "mini-hub" in SIN with intra-Asia flights to CGK, DPS, HGK and BKK. Finally, AY operates the BKK-SIN route.

If one wants to go from anywhere south of HKG to North Asia, however, it won't be a direct oneworld flight.

Unfortunately QF dropped SIN-BKK a couple of years ago. AY operates a codeshare for them.

If Asia includes India, BA, CX and QF all fly to India. I recently did SIN-BOM on QF, MAA-LHR on BA, etc. and could find OW fairly helpful in connecting to India. Star ofcourse is way better (UA, SQ and LH are all adding lots of interesting new flts to India).