Hi. Even though I travel extensively I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of the industry but I would like to canvas opinions on why the big Gulf carriers (Emirates, Etihad, Qatar) have not joined one of the major alliances. I really mean One World or Star. From a selfish point of view it would be great for me!!

Is it to do with cost of entry or are they not wanted or would it provide too much competition to exisitng members etc etc...

May be it's due to the attitude of Gulf carriers. It's true though that middle eastern carriers are unpresented in the major alliances.

See this link- CEO of Qatar Airways believes he should be invited to join and not have to ask:

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/fligh...=68495247.blog

That's a very interesting question. I believe the answer is wrapped up in some issues of business culture.

They all have the money, they all have the vision, and they want the best. Clearly when it comes to buying hardware, they have no problem signing the cheques.

IMHO when it comes to business processes, then they are less aligned with (what looks to us like) best practice. You see symptoms of this exhibited in other areas - eg. EK's lunatic non-standard premium classes, QR's weird booking processes, bonkers FF programmes (EK an honourable exception) and ALL of their utterly garbage websites.

The very top management layer will always be occupied by a local, and a strategy they don't personally like is unlikely to get through. No doubt the airlines in question have made some evaluation of the alliances, in their own sweet way.

My money is on them not bothering. EK, EY and QR will rather use their sovereign wealth to buy market share and just front it out. But if one joins, they all will.

Er, have you forgotten RJ in the oneworld alliance. I used them for a couple of sectors a week or so ago.

Think we'll move this one over to the Oneworld or Star board in a bit...

Maybe they're not talking about RJ because they not as major as EK, EY or QR?
Still, I quite like RJ (not the Avro RJ!), although AMM is a bit of a strange airport.

GF now codesharing with AA, could be the first step towards OW.


Speaking of which, and a bit OT, but if we're going to be selfish, I'm much more interested in having OW start treating Africa as it does SWP, so you could hit LHR twice as long as one is a transit to Africa, as you can hit Asia twice as long as one is a transit to SWP.

Er, I don't think the Gulf of Aqaba was what the OP meant when referring to 'Gulf' carriers. Otherwise we could also mention MS (Gulf of Suez) in the Star Alliance.

I think I read somewhere that the CEO of RJ has now become the CEO of Gulf Air - perhaps he'll also take them into OW

Not in OW but EY just started a codeshare with AA.

Remember the days when BA had a reciprocal FFP deal with EK? THey also code-shared IIRC on AUH-LHR and DXB-MAN. Pulled the plug about 6 years ago but not sure who initiated.

It's tricky. If I were BA I wouldn't want any of these rather formidable competitors in OW (especially not EK) so as not to take away traffic from me. Unless of course there were a danger of them joining Star.