Originally Posted by
Asturias56
" I still think for whatever reason Western European airlines hold a certain prestige over airlines from the subcontinent."
from the subcontinent yes- but the Middle & far East - no way - ever since SQ blew the doors off and then the ME3 got their act together there has been no good reason to fly with a european airline long haul to the east. Just look at the collapse of BA's far eastern/Kangaroo routes
My point being as I was referring to the post I quoted, airlines like SQ the ME3 and even CX to an extent, offer the so called ULH flights where they make sense and people would be willing to use them. But offer someone an ULH on AI or TG etc I think the general feeling would be they’d rather fly a euro airline one stop via their hub. Now I’m not saying that euro airlines offer better quality than airlines from the subcontinent but I think generally that’s the perception of people which is why ULH hasn’t killed the hub model. Same applies for South American Airlines, African airlines (maybe ET aside) and North American airlines I think for the most part would rather you flew to western Europe with them and connect onto a partner airline with the frequency they offer across the pond. Their simply isn’t the quality of the ME3/SQ etc in the rest of the world to make ULH viable to replace the hub model at the moment