Quote: “All of these are LATAM hubs, what I am suggesting that IAG and LATAM should agree that LATAM serves Mainland-Europe/Ireland from LATAM and BA serves those hubs from the UK, this would mean IB withdraws services from MAD to LATAM hubs (although it would still codeshare LATAM flights to MAD and if launched BCN)”
Why? It would be nice to have BA on these routes to/from LHR, as it’s very “light” on South America routes (just three), but why would LA/JJ and IB agree to this?
In particular, why would IB agree? Without South America, there’s not much IB longhaul left! For IB it would probably be the equivelant of BA abandoning North America!
Quote: “What I don't get is why China still has a problem with Airlines in Europe (currently KLM only) in serving Taiwan under their own name (on the basis of the fact they are "symbols/arms of the state"), when they don't apply to American, Japanese, South East Asian, Korean and their own carriers (a fair number of which are state owned)”
IIRC, BA’s TPE route was chopped in the downturn that followed the 11th September 2001. Could be wrong, but don’t think there’s anything political or diplomatic in this. Also don’t think the route will will return purely because transferring at HKG onto CX is so easy. As for TPE non-stops, could LHR slots be better deployed elsewhere?