http://www.atwonline.com/news/other....e=3%2F5%2F2007

This would be great for me.

Weird given CXs ownership of KA (Dragon Air) for chinese domestic flights

Also would have thought that CX would view the network as overlapping CXs too much, like previous BA boycotts of Euro-based airlines.

Well, as long as I'm paying to stare at a random seatback advertisement, eat week-old faux beef and be served by a 60-pound flight attendant with cigarette burns on her calves, I'd better be getting AAdvantage miles. :-)

KA flies to China from HKG only. MU covers domestic China and also other international routes.

This would also mean OW finally covering routes between China and Korea.

1W is usually the quality-driven alliance.. but what can they do since the other two major Chinese airlines already have made commitement to the other alliances.. so the remaining airline is at the same time the worst of these three major Chinese airlines..

Since AA's foolish pilots stopped AA's much needed China expansion they have got to get their passengers around China somehow.

JAL has pretty good coverage of China, so that will help. But oneworld does need (an additional) Chinese carrier. There aren't a lot of good choices, unfortunately.

I wish the Oneworld negotiators the best of luck negotiating with China Eastern. They are not easy to deal with in business transactions.

Btw, if you think the food on MU is bad, try their company cafeteria at SHA . . .

...you mean surely the one that has a 20% cross shareholding with CX and was and perhaps still negotiating a buyout of AZ, so they can get enough European traffic without need to codeshare with, you know, a certain large European yellow carrier whose name is synonimous with quality and sophistication, especially in Y class...
...and the one that is almost three years singing the same tune "we're joining! we're joining!" and at the same time setting a hub for codeshare with their intended friends in...Chengdu?...

Who says food on MU is bad??? I have proof here showing they serve "DELICIOUS FOOD"!

http://img152.imagevenue.com/img.php..._122_102lo.JPG

Hahaha, that sure looks like one DELICIOUS FOOD!!!

I'll take a wild guess that I fly MU more than any other regular reader of this board. For example, I flew 5 segments on MU just this week. In fact, I'll take another wild guess that I fly more miles each year than any other reader of this board.

Let's use the last MU flight that I took on Wednesday morning from PEK to PVG in J as an example. The plane was new and clean. The flight attendants met me at the door, took my bag and carried it to my seat. The FA's were young, attractive, well-trained, poised, happy, even fun to talk to. The FA that worked on my side took the inititive to ask if I prefered to be called by my last name or first name. First is my preference as I'm kind of over being called Mr. Millionmiler all the time. After that ALL of the FA's called me by my first name from memory. Their english language skills were consistent with staff at any 5 star hotel in Beijing or Shanghai. The safety demo video was also given in sign language which I thought was a professional touch though it doesn't apply to me per se. The on-demand video was great and I had trouble choosing which movie to watch. For my meal I chose the lobster in pepper sauce but all of the choices sounded fine. The lobster was certainly better than the cold, flavourless lobster that AA used to serve on salads on a couple of routes in international F. Oh, and the seats in J were better than the seats that AA is only really talking about installing in international J. The seats were similar to QF's long haul J seats without the pod shell. Don't even think about comparing them to the sh!ty BA seats in club Europe. I'd like the remind the readers that this was a DOMESTIC China flight.

The 2nd tier asian airlines are changing quickly for the better and MU is in that catagory. Its not the same airline that it was 5 years ago. Its not as good as CX overall but it was WAY better than the Dragonair flight I took from HKG-PEK last Sunday.

There are are things that I don't like about MU, but on the whole its a pretty good airline.

The airlines in China and India are improving so fast that its hard to keep up with the improvements. 10 years ago I often took a night 14 hour train ride rather than subject myself to the domestic Indian airlines. Now, the Indian airline Kingfisher has, in my opinion, the best domestic J/F service of any airline anywhere in the world. I wish we had an airline that good here in the US.

millionmiler thanks for the write up. I've heard less pleasant things said about MU's Y (but then when ever is Y a pleasant experience) but good to know that they do a decent job.

I'd certainly agree with your comments about India. Things have moved a long way in the 6 years I have been travelling there. Kingfisher are a very impressive outfit, I wish we had an outfit like that it Europe too.