One very noticeable development with the announced United Airlines / Continental Airlines merger is that 2 of the 3 major airline alliances (SkyTeam, Star Alliance and Oneworld) now have Super-Legacy airlines participating in it.  SkyTeam has Air France/KLM and Delta (Delta/Northwest).  Star Alliance will have United/Continental and, so far, will continue to have US Airways in the US market. 

Oneworld has American Airlines.  A lone airline ever increasingly burdened with debt and who shows little sign of recovering in a market that several airlines have shown improvement in.  Oneworld has the fewest airline partners although it arguably maintains global coverage.  I see some opportunity for a few of its partners, too. 

QANTAS has long had ties to both British Airways and American Airlines but I wonder if they aren’t looking around and realizing that there may be better opportunities with Star or SkyTeam.  They compete with British Airways on many international routes so I wonder how much love they feel on that side.  It’s true that AA provides them with lots of feed in the US but several other partners could do the same in the same cities.  In fact, I suspect SkyTeam would love to have them on board.  United (Star) already flies US/Australia routes.   In addition, Air New Zealand is a Star member and doing nicely on trans-pacific routes too. 

Oneworld doesn’t directly access Canada and has mediocre ties to Africa (via European partners) and Latin America is perhaps a bit underserved in that LAN is the only partner there and their concentration is on the west coast of South America.   The Far East remains well served by Cathay and JAL but India is conspicuously missing.  That’s a country of 1 billion (with a “B”) people.  You would think that having a regional partner in India would be a priority.   Southeast Asia is weak as it is basically served with flights to and from that region but not within.  There is another 1 billion people located in that region. 

There are several European partners but I do notice that there are two primary hubs:  London and Madrid.  Not the hubs most people want to fly in and out of.  London is congested and prone to delays and Madrid is served by Iberia, not an airline with a great reputation.  It also doesn’t “feel” like a convenient hub. 

What is more noticeable is that the founding partners of Oneworld were mainstay legacy airlines.  Airlines that have not seen any revolution to date and who often are burdened with some of the highest costs to operate in their regions. 

With the ever growing size of both Star and SkyTeam, I do wonder if there will be any room for Oneworld.  Could the Oneworld alliance be absorbed by the other two?

Filed under: Airlines Alliances by ajax