justageek

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?

oiRRio

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

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

ReelChief

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.

number_6

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).

bcmatt

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!!

justageek

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

bcmatt

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 () 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!

Leumas

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?

Japhydog

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.

sdsearch

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.

Kiwi Flyer

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.

justageek

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.

justageek

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?

number_6

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.

bensyd

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