Does 8/10 mark the end of oneWorld?
 

oneWorld relies on LHR at its international connecting point. The U.S. government has told us we are in the "Long War" now. What this means is that while the details and plots may fluctuate from month to month, incidents like 8/10, and massive overreaction to those incidents, will continue for the foreseeable future.

At the same time, the fact that the UK is the most well-recognized US ally seems to make it a huge terrorist target going forward.

So my question is, given that terrorists seem to feel less animosity towards the countries where the other alliances are hubbed (Netherlands, France, Germany) than they do towards the UK (and US), will passengers shift to the other alliances during the upcoming years? Will anyone want to transit through LHR over the next years or even decades, given the onerous restrictions that are imposed in knee-jerk fashion whenever a threat is squashed?

I'd hate anyone to overreact to yesterday's events and start jumping to premature conclusions. :rolleyes:

Put it this way I haven't rung just yet AA to cash in all my miles before OW collapses. ;)

Given that these concerns might result in a reduction in the popularity of the OW alliance, a more optimistic way of looking at it is that it might cause those in charge to re-think the escalating prices of xONEx tickets.

Let's review the airports which have had actual terrorist attacks related to the middle east in the past 30 years:

VIE (airport attack using machine guns on waiting pax) 1985
FCO (similar to VIE but targeting the El Al ticket counter) 1985

So a Star hub and a Skyteam hub have been attacked (with dozens of pax killed). I cannot recall any other successful attacks on airports (there was a shooting at LAX a few years ago, but it was personal and not terrorist action, and there have been attacks in Sri Lanka and Phillipines but not related to the current threat.

So how much impact did Star and Skyteam suffer from those attacks in 1985? Have you been avoiding travel to VIE or FCO since then? Time passes, and it makes little or no difference in the long run (in my opinion).

bmi (UK), US Airways and United (US) are all members of Star Alliance, so it too must be at risk of collapse. Clearly the only way forward is to all join SkyTeam!!

FRA is the major connecting point for Star for US-Europe pax.

That was not my point, but nevermind!

I guess I had been overwhelmed so many speculative, overreacting and at times hysterical threads on FT today that I finally snapped and had to make a snarky comment somewhere ;). Glancing at some posts today, you would think that 10/08 (:p) marked the end of the world, not just OW!

As somebody living in the country which has the most draconian restrictions at the moment, I plan to make decisions and assumptions after we have experienced a bit more than than just 36+ hours of the situation.

Topic?: I'll reserve judgement for the moment on fate of OW!

OP described recent events at over-reaction and may cause the collapose of OW.

By the same extend, did 9/11 kill off air travel? People were saying the same after 9/11. Now, the air travel business is arguably better than before.

Don't you think the logic is a bit of an over-reaction too?

US air travel would not have survived in anything like its current form without massive amounts of cash from the government plus government takeover of underfunded pensions and government protection through bankruptcy laws. Furthermore, I don't see how barely making any money is "better than before."

So maybe the logic isn't so much of an overreaction.

The other question is: Can OW figure out that they need to diversity their European transfer points from LHR somewhat to offset this? It's because OW chose to rely on LHR so heavily that they've now got this problem.

I think you're overreacting. The current restrictions will be temporary, at least in their form now.

As an analogy, a lot of people find the US immigration and international transfer process extremely inconvenient and annoying. Some even go to great lengths to avoid US as much as possible. Has it seen the collapse of all the alliances (since they all have US-based airlines)? No of course it hasnt.

Perhaps that's a better question than the one I originally asked. Maybe 8/10 won't mark the end of LHR as a transfer point, but it may have enough of an effect "on the margin" that oneWorld will need to diversify.

How many people use the USA for transit versus LHR? Maybe I'm mistaken, but it has always seemed to me that the European hubs (LHR, AMS, CDG, FRA) carry a lot more international connecting traffic (that is, passenger's origin and destination are both in countries other than the hub) than the USA hubs do?

The new terminal at MAD is part of this and is likely to attract more OW flights into MAD over the next few years (CX presently "flies" to MAD via an IB codeshare from AMS). After MA joins, the BUD hub might help with some intra-Europe routes. I'd bet that by 2008 there will be BUD-HKG flights by CX and several far east routes by MA. Of course this is a drop in the bucket compared to the LHR capacity.

BA has deliberately adopted a "route through LHR" strategy for the past decade, tearing down any non-LHR long-haul service. They could have a dozen routes out of MAN for example -- the traffic is there -- but only have MAN-JFK and route everything else via LHR. The new T5 at LHR was part of this strategy. Maybe BA will fail as an airline due to LHR troubles, but if it happens it was at the hand of BA management rather than bad luck.

OW collapsing I think not. These flights took off from LHR but were all American bound and were all American airlines so it would seem to me that they were targeting America not LHR. People didnt stop using LHR after Lockerbie why will they now?


btw what happened on the 8th of October :p

How do you know the same won't happen again? Also, you'd think that airlines pay more attention to their financial planning to minimise their impact against terrorism?

I don't know that the same won't happen again. Nor do I know that it will. The point is that it appears as though in your earlier post you were faulting the OP for fantastical thinking, and I was responding that I don't think it's all that fantastical. Do I think it's likely? No.

As to your question re financial planning: I think it's pretty much impossible to plan both for exremely high loads (what's happening this summer in the US) while simultaneously preparing for a collapse in ridership.

Another reason why the loss of SWISS to *A was a big loss to OW. Perhaps AA will move some LHR flights to other European cities to bypass the LHR zoo.

The problem is that lot of the traffic to LHR is connections to AA partners. So it's got to be cities where that works.

For those who don't mind backtracking (if final destination is western Europe), BUD after MA joiins would be one.

MAD might be another, tho if the AA masses complain as much about IB as FTers do that might be tough.

AY might be a fine airline (at least I don't see people on FT complaining about them left and right), but HEL is way over there (wonderful for Russia, but what else, especially after MA joins?).

One thing that could work is if AA could set up an EQM agreement with SN (sort of the way it has with AS). Most AA fliers in the US don't care that much that AS is not officially in OW, because they get the same EQM earning ability (and even exit row seat selection if booked as an AA codeshare!) just due to the way AA and AS have partnered.

LX was blackballed by BA (after BA got what it wanted out of LX assets -- those LHR slots) precisely because it was a viable alternative hub to LHR. BA will fight tooth and nail against any other Oneworld hub in Europe becoming viable for longhaul traffic. BUD is the best chance (due to lots of British investment there, including purchase of the airport) and the small size of BUD ensures it will be capped at about 10% of LHR's longhaul even if it becomes phenomenally successful.

Rather ironically the most likely short-term beneficiary of the LHR chaos (if it indeed continues for a month) is DUB and EI. A bit of fryingpan to fire (DUB is a chronically chaotic and frustrating airport).

IMO all the more reason for looking hard at SN.

Actually BA did not get the slots - LX sold them to QF for their 4 x daily flights to Australia (2 x SYD, 2 x MEL). I believe transaction was the greatest amount of money handed over for slots thus far.

Yes, LX was screwed by having to use them as a guarantee, yet they did manage to extract a pretty penny for them. :)

A little OT but I just don't know where to post this information:

Current hand luggage restrictions from Spain:

Flights to/via UK: same as ex-UK restrictions.
Flights to/via US/SJU: same as ex-US restrictions.
All other flights: no new restrictions.

Also note BRU has imposed new restrictions, almost as strict as ex-UK.

Given that Spain is IB's home base, and IB is part of OneWorld, I'm not sure how OT it is. Those trying to figure out how to do OW fares and not hating IB quite AS much as the current LHR mess :) might find it very relevant to the use of miles!

Having said all that: How far ahead must OW fares be purchased? This situation is changing SO fast, I'm not sure how useful it will be for much past same-week sorts of routing decisions.

It varies:

Who else is left in Europe that has a viable F/J service and has a comprehensive enough network to rival that of BA that is acceptable to OW standards that isn't part of the STAR alliance yet?

This is already happening.

Quote from thread
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=589326

ORD-MAD-FCO was the obvious response, not only because of OW partner but also lower airport fees and IB fares, and much better airport facilities than LHR and FRA.



It have been demostrated in Madrid and London that terrorist incidents only have a short effect , recovering to normality in a short period of time.

Madrid city since the march 2004 bombing is registering a booming in tourism with more than 20% increases .

Spain is registering around 6% increases every year since 2004. Now 2nd tourist destination worldwide after France.


The case of LHR perhaps would be different because the new measures will only add to a previous delicate situation , with no more capacity and horrendous transfers and baggage handling at LHR , so perhaps it will suffer more because of this added effect .

Who haven't lose baggage transiting in LHR ?

Lots of people avoided LHR before this last security scare . To the moment is only that , an scare.

Exactly. In my case, on the very first trip through there (and in that case, I wasn't even changing airlines, it was all BA).

Since then, I've only booked LHR when I knew I could carry on everything (at least as far as LHR; a gate check on the final leg is a lot less likely to be lost).

The ban on liquids I could work around. For one thing, liquids are light so they're relatively cheap to send ahead (if you're concerned you may not be able to buy there).

But this morning the "relaxed" security procedure at UK airports involves only ONE carryon on rather small size (about 6.2" tall max). I can't fit both my laptop and my SLR into such a bag, and no way am I going to choose to go through an airport that makes me check one or the other, especially when that airport is so known for losing checked bags.

I withdraw my original question/premise.

According to this article
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/wo...d-airport.html

the various EU nations are going to formulate unified transportation "security" rules. As a result, it will be just as annoying to transit through LHR as anywhere else.

Looks like we're quickly running out of continents...