Originally Posted by
WHBM
Looking at the US documentation (linked) it states quite clearly it is about codesharing with other OneWorld operators.
Regarding the Shannon crew change, as I understand it this is a deliberate decision to maximise service reliability. The cabin crew are rostered throughout from LCY to New York, but the decision is to do the flight deck crew change at Shannon so if the morning inbound is diverted to Gatwick due to low vis at LCY, the crew can be sent to Gatwick instead to ferry to LCY (no cabin crew required) and then fly to Shannon. They couldn't get on to New York in one day doing this. When crew are assigned in terms of flying hours per month, where any breaks are taken is not as significant on costs as some imagine.
I stand corrected on the crew rostering - thanks for the explanation.
As for your comment about the codeshare, I'm afraid I'm not quite convinced. Why do they need a new AOC in order to codeshare? My trusty little OAG tells me that there are AA and IB codes on the LCY-JFK service already. My read of the US filing is that they are asking for a change of AOC and - secondarily - permission to codeshare on that new AOC, i.e. that it's not the codeshare which is driving the request. But I imagine we will find out more details in due course.