With CI partnering with NW, does it mean it will become Skyteam?
 

So China airlines will parnter with NW as of Aug 1 2007. ALready a Delta partner....any chance it'll become Skyteam?

Read it somewhere that they are planning to apply in 2008 but whether getting approved or not is another story.

Cz
 

From a market perspective, CZ is much more important to ST than CI will ever be. :D

Not sure aobut what your reply has to do with the OP's question, but I agree CZ has higher value market, but their quality is still way behind CI and other ST members.

CI quality can only be judged if you actually make it there... they weren't nicknamed the "Flying Coffin" in Hong Kong without reason.

In all seriousness though, I don't know what CI's plan is, but if a Taiwan based carrier entered I'd much rather see Eva than CI. Aside from CI's former safety concerns their 747s show more aging than UA's and that takes some doing.

CI's is a different airline than 10 years ago. Their pilot training is now (and has been for quite a while now) done by retired USA pilots (I sat next to a CI trainer on a NW KIX-TPE flight)

Their F class is also very nice from personal experience.

EVA already has some kind of arm's length reciprocal-FF relationship with CO, so it's weird than NW has taken up with the other player out of TPE. I would rather EVA myself as well.

I don't entirely understand the NW & CO relationship. While I know that NW is a partial owner in CO, they do some very strange things in their business with each other... for instance, NW & CO have recriprocal Elite agreements to give each others elites free upgrades as if they were their own however at the same exact time they have this little spat about 50% eqms on cheap fares flown on the others airline... Now the Eva ff agreement with CO and the CI agreement with NW... they are like a teenage brother and sister.