I've had two separate set of travel buddies fly TG biz-class twice in the last 5 months and both were crazy about it. They've also flown CX, SQ, and MH... so they know what quality is. I admit that I've never yet flown TG myself, but have great faith in their opinion as we do have similar travel tastes.

As for the exploded TG 737... that's basically another TW800: plane was having a bad day, got a little warm, and just decided to blow up all on its own to end its misery. Um, yeah... not gonna touch that one.

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Faire du ciel le plus bel endroit de la terre c'est impossible sans Concorde!
~ConcordeBoy

None of the airline alliances are truly seamless.

Despite its headstart on oneworld and skyteam, Star Alliance, for example, still does not have an integrated reservations system. Oneworld, in fact, has achieved better systems integration than Star Alliance because of the connections that AA maintains with Sabre. The Sabre people figured out how to patch all the oneworld systems together before Star Alliance even had a plan for their own system's patch.

Oneworld does some basic things quite well:

Lounge Access based on FF level with EXP's getting First Class Lounge Access, Plat's Business Class Lounge, and even Gold's regular club access.

Award redemption: With oneworld awards, one does not need separate awards to travel on more than one oneworld carrier. To many destinations, oneworld awards require less miles than two separate awards, as it the case with most of the other alliances.

Quality of Carriers: AA's has partnered with some of the best carriers in the world. Almost all offer a suite product in first class. Their club facilities are among the best and most prestigious in the world, for example, Cathay's Wing Club in Hong Kong.

Elite Qualifying and Bonus miles: Can be earned on all oneworld carriers.

To be sure, AA works better with some of its partners than others. For example, AA's working relationship with Qantas is much better than its working relationship with BA. But, each partner recognizes and acknowleges on average the elite FF's of the other. I have no problem, for instance, getting into a BA Terrace Club or even First Lounge with my EXP card.

The only thing that is holding oneworld back is the inabiity of AA and BA to codeshare or to coordinate schedules. It would make some connections at Heathrow easier if they could. However, even if they can't, I am not going to start flying through CDG. In my opinion, I would rather tolerate a two to three hour layover and slightly higher fare than AirFrance.

And it never will... because like SkyTeam, reservation system integration was specifically forbidden in the terms of Star's antitrust immunity.

Just out of curiousity, you do realize that this is the DELTA forum dont you?

While FlyerTalkers might not mind the inconvenience at all, in the real world: having to purchase multiple tickets (with restricted FFP options) when competing carriers offer seamless travel/FFP can be quite a deterrent.

Yeah, "only" that... just that small insignificant matter
I guess: not being able to coordinate miles transatlantically, relying on LX to complete your European travel, and having to take United to LAX/SFO every time you'd like to fly CX; dont count right?

Hmm... waiting for hours in a less efficient airport and paying a higher price for it... cant say I agree with ya there buddy



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Faire du ciel le plus bel endroit de la terre c'est impossible sans Concorde!
~ConcordeBoy

Hopefully you trust my tastes as well: I took three domestic (intra-Thai) TG legs in C in April and was very pleased. Two were very short duration of about an hour, the third was about two hours. All were on widebody aircraft, and on one flight I was invited to experience the int'l sleeper seat, which was very impressive. (These domestic flights with 3 class int'l config are sold as two classes). Overall, a very impressive short-haul C experience at a tiny premium to Y (About $290 vs $225 for BKK-CNX-HKT-BKK).

[This message has been edited by andymo99 (edited 06-06-2002).]

I reality, the only real advantage of the alliances is base miles for all. Most carriers interline with each other, many you can get boarding passes for from either UA, DL or AA, none really accept each others tickets without endorsement, few endorse easily with cause (even full fare), none can give you much information about each other, there are no service standards, often times there are reciprocal frequent flyer awards across airlines not in each others alliance, rarely does an alliance partner care much about your alliance status other than checkin or boarding, blah blah blah

I connect and ticket inter alliance and intra alliance all the time and notice no difference. It's nice for me to stay within Skyteam and Star for mileage but that's all I seem to get out of it. I even mix the two alliance carriers one one ticket and use different frequent flyer numbers for the proper respective carriers without problem.

LAOCA, I agree with you. It's all about the base miles, the ability to keep status intact regardless of which destinations one is required to get to. For example, the UA/DL "partnership" is completely useless to the great majority of DeltaManiacs as the miles do not count as base miles. Besides earning base miles, other factors are lounge access and recognition of elite status for checkins and operational upgrades etc.