Who will join next?
 

I don't quite fully understand the requirements for one airline to join OW. I often hear, read about a certain airline joining OW or Star. And with the recent Asiana/LOT/Spanair addition, it leaves me wondering who I'll be flying with next (I fly AA).

Does anybody know who will be the next airline(s) that will join OW?

Personally, I hope it will be Swiss. As I'll be flying to Europe pretty often, except BA that you don't earn the miles on (the transatlantic portion) and IB that you don't even get the full credit on, Swiss would be great addition.

Swiss would have to be odd-on favourite for next OW member. Another possible member (*A defector) may be NZ if QF are successful in buying a significant share of them from the NZ Government (rumour is QF are looking for 20-50% stake, but may be constrained by Australian ACCC).

I'm hoping for a full integration of JAL and TAM (Brazil).

I’ve been Executive Platinum on AA for several years, but I am now seriously considering defecting to United simply because the choices in Oneworld are so limited. Does anyone know if OW is seriously thinking about opening up to new members? The rumor that went around the board was that BA had blackballed Swiss because BA was afraid of the potential competition within Europe as well as the possibility that the BA hub in London for long distance connecting flights from North America might be hurt. Not to mention the fact that Swiss is allowed to code share and credit AA mileage across the Atlantic, while BA is not, potentially attracting more traffic to Swiss.

JAL and TAM, I could understand, but I still don't see the benefit of allowing Swiss to join. From a business perspective, would you want Swiss to join if you were BA? What is the benefit? Do they go places that the current carriers don't? The only thing I can see is so that people have more trans-atlantic FF options, a reason that I don't think is compelling enough to warrant BA (or AA) from allowing them in. JAL would be a *huge* addition. And though I haven't flown TAM, I have heard very good things and OW could use a better South American Network. Lan Chile is good, but their networks are based widely on cargo traffic, which is going to limit their exposure to certain markets. Oneworld needs to hit the Brazilian market somehow. The other place that OW should be looking is towards the middle-east. Specifically EK (which has ties with BA) and GF (tied with AA). Both would open up the India market, and EK is going to be negotiating for US access in the next few years. The last would be Dragonair, which would open the China market. Why go for piddly airlines like Swiss in oversaturated markets when you can go for major players in major markets? Get TAM, Emirates, Gulf Air, Japan Air, and Dragon Air, and you just added about three billion customers to your potential market.

This is all besides the fact that the powers that be at Swiss made one of the most massive and costliest mistakes of any airline in the past several years. Treating them with a bit of skepticism by OW is a good thing, in my opinion.

I suppose from Brazil Oneworld is limited. Just as Star is limited from Australia (with the demise of Ansett, they have no coverage for the whole continent, though Star is scrambling to solve that problem). I doubt that BA black-balled Swiss, despite the oft-repeated story about that ... AA is now code-sharing with Swiss on 20 flights in Europe (this makes Swiss almost the same as a Oneworld airline, for AAdvantage purposes). This deal probably makes Swiss viable and ensures its survival in the short term. Oneworld is overdue to announce a new airline. The obvious need in Oneworld is in Asia (and JAL is the major prize).

From a pax perspective, swiss is a great option/alternative to get to Central and Eastern Europe. ZRH is a great airport and can offer more convenient connections. LHR intra-terminal transfers can be less than pleasant. Forget about efficient transfers from LHR to LGW.

Personally, I'd rather connect through ZRH to get to Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, Bologna, Budapest, Moscow, Warsaw, Istanbul, Athens, Cairo and Dubai.

Keep in mind that LX can also get pax to Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Tehran, Muscat, Tunis, Casablanca, Tripoli, Karachi, Delhi and Mumbai.

I hope LX and JL join soon. KA (Dragonair) would be a huge asset.

Dragonair would dramatically increase oneworld's competitiveness in Asia compared to Star. After all, China is where the business action is. Does anyone know why this hasn't happened a long time ago, given that it is controlled by CX?

KA (Dragonair) is actually not controlled by CX. The two are associated airlines.

Swire Pacific Ltd. is CX's parent company and owns a 7.71% interest in KA. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. owns 17.79%. CITIC Pacific owns 29.35%. China National Aviation Company Ltd. is the largest shareholder with 43.29% (CNAC is a listed company). The remaining minority shares are owned by others.

Interestingly, KA participates in JAL Mileage Bank (as well as Asia Miles). KA also has its own FFP.

[This message has been edited by Tintin & Snowy (edited 06-05-2002).]

No one "blackballed" Swiss. They took some pages from the SR spin machine to get publicity by saying such things as they were running a "beauty pageant" between Star Skyteam and OneWorld. Star and Skyteam both told LX to go to hell way prior to the "deadline" so they had to make noises that OneWorld looked likely. BA's isues had to do with losing routes/frequencies between Switzerland and the UK, which would have meant that BA would lose revenue only to give it to an airline with no track record at all (or the worst in the industry depending on how you look at it). Furthermore, SR had become such a poor airline over the last few years that the OneWorld members would not want to risk their image before the airline was even launched.

The whole thing was a pathetic exercise by LX which showed just what a superfluous airline they are, and that they have no pull whatsoever in the international industry. It was actually quite sad as no airline save AA, really cared to have anything to do with them (and for that matter basically just confirmed the previous situation that they had had with SR).

Please also see:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum83/HTML/000931.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum83/HTML/000284.html

Re: Dragonair joining OneWorld

I once read an article in a Chinese newspaper saying that Dragonair have considered joining an alliance a few years ago, but have decided against doing so.

The Dragonair executive indicated to the journalist that it'll be to Dragonair's disadvantage to join an alliance. As we all know, Dragonair is the "preferred" airline for travel from HKG to China. By joining, say OW alliance, airlines of other alliances will very likely feed their passengers to other less preferred carriers such as Air China or China Southern instead.

At one time Swire/CX owned the majority stake in Dragon Air but were forced to sell if to keep their (CX'S) routes intact during the time Hong Kong was being taken over by China.

What about SA? At the moment, itineraries involving OneWorld and Africa can be quite cumbersome, surely putting SA into the mix would help things admirably?

Dave

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