Supersonic Swinger

I will be interesting to see if this does push them towards Skyteam - with the whole OceanAir connection in Brazil, this *might* have an impact on Gol potentially entering Skyteam as well.

UA Fan

Gol might go to Oneworld due to their tie up with AA.

nomad1974

Or into Star Alliance; or even oneworld. Nothing's a given on this one.

skyteamelite

Could someone please remind me, why are they bringing TAROM in?

If I'm not mistaken, it doesn't add any new destinations to the ST network... The Eastern Europe coverage provided by Czech is already pretty good...

Where's the benefit for the alliance?

Why don't they focus on South-East Asia, India, Central/South America and the Middle East instead?!

nomad1974

Because they get what they can. TAROM's becoming a member does not prevent ST from seeking airlines in SE Asia. Why not bring them in if they want? What's the problem here?

kiwiandrew

I suspect that it is more in the nature of a long term strategy for Skyteam , although Romania is currently one of the poorest countries in Europe it is also one of the more populous , if the Romanian economy grows in future that is potentially a big pool of additional Skyteam flyers in the future ( I think this was probably the same reason the Star went for LOT , for the long term potential rather than the current Polish market) .

It also will do them no harm to have a hub in Eastern Europe to add to their existing ones in Western and Central Europe - pax hate backtracking , especially time sensitive pax .

It is not a zero-sum game . Bringing in RO does not preclude expanding in other geographical areas as well .

N830MH

Source??? When China Eastern will able to joins into entry the Skyteam sometime in near the future. So it will be perfect opportunity to see China Eastern will be closer to joins entry the alliance.

UA Fan

b/c they will take whoever will come.

JC25

china eastern gives bonus miles on asiamiles, that's all ; they have their own FFP.
Shanghai Airlines is already full member of *A, like Air China.
so I wonder if MU + FM will come to ST / the situation in CHINA would be very unbalanced !

*A : CA MU FM
ST : CZ

OR
*A : CA
st : CZ+MU+FM

I hope they will join *A : much more miles in C or F classes than ST;
F in CZ : 125%
F in CA or FM : 200%

since one year i almost stopped to use CZ for this reason, even it is a better domestic cy than MU.

PS MU could also join Marco Polo club, convenient with biz with HKG, and dragonair.

bostontraveler

AV has limited service to the US and even more limited service to Europe. Connecting to EZE, GRU and SCL (the deep S. American markets) is crucial for Skyteam and I don't see how AV or TA can help in this regard.
Reason being if I have to travel from JFK-EZE they have to do a lot in terms of aircraft quality/connections to make it appealing enough for me to want to take the flight via BOG. TA on a 737 is not happening for me for a distance equivalent to JFK-HNL or JFK-CAI.

Skyteam is still a laggard. Seems like they like to scrape up the dregs and just bring them in.

If you want to travel US-EU great. Asia is lousy and Oceania and S. America are virtually non-existent.

hfly

Well, Gee there is LAN, its already in another alliance, the smallest and crappiest one where it is actually a major player, so I guess they are out?? Aerolineas Argentinas is almost non existant, and everyone is playing footsie with GOL after every major Brazilian airline ceased to exist. So, I guess that there may never be a "deep Latin American carrier" in ST, oh, woe, what is ST to do. Oceania, oh yes, not that CO is leaving, I guess they better sign up "V" or a crop dusting operation. There is only one player and one half player in that market, they have been signed up in the other alliances for over a decade, so yes, you are right ST just can't be competitive in that huge 24 million person market known as Oceania, the one that most airlines DO NOT fly to because it is not profitable. In any case you'd fly Aerolineas Argentinas to EZE rather than DL or CO before it? And then you talk about dregs? While ST mat have been accused of this in the past, * seems to have taken that title the last 4-5 years.

MUFFP

MU+FM will be in SKYTEAM since the chairman of MU likes SKYTEAM.

bodory

Not sure this is enough good reason...

Akiestar

The current chairman of MU is the same chairman who brought CZ to SkyTeam.

JC25

why not. So ST will have like a kingdom in China ! for me it looks bad. In F with FM or CA in domestics fligths one get 200% miles unstead 150% or may be only 125% miles for ST. Now seldom I use CZ, and in anyway it wasn't so convenient from Shanghai. So it means i'll have much less choice than before. China Eastern's hub is in shanghai ((((