It is difficult to understand without getting inside the Chinese mentatility. Yes KLM serve there but are the only European carrier to do so and I think I am correct do so as KLM Asia. The Americans have a different relationship with Taiwan to the rest of us, I have often myself referred to Taipei and the U.S. version of Hong Kong.
The fact is that the mainland government views inter straits flights as flights between two parts of China and remember it has taken many years for this situation to occur. Flights HK to Taiwan have always been frequent and whilst pre dates the return to the mainland where an unofficial way of connecting pre mainland flights.
The Beijing government would view the commencement of services by a flag carrier as a political move and that is why many airlines have shied away from offering direct flights.
There is a great demand for flights from China to Taiwan and v.v. maybe the other truth is there is not such a great demand from Europe.
Well even the Americans no longer recognise the ROC, although they do still have good “relations” with that government
What I still don’t get is that why do they still insist that European airlines have to create arms length subsidiaries, yet the flag carriers of Indonesia (state owned), Japan (not exactly a friend of China), Korea, Malaysia, The Philippines, Thailand (state owned) and Vietnam (state owned) are all allowed to operate under their own name without any problems in serving the PRC, not only that but a lot of them are state owned and pretty much all of them put state symbols/colours on the outside of their planes
All of those nations do not recognise the ROC either, Delta and United also have no problems in serving both PRC and ROC
I smell hypocrisy in all of this...
I think the real reason is as you say, OW partner Cathay Pacific serves the region so well, LHR-TPE is not yet needed, but do you think its viable with a 787?
For heavens sake, we get it that they are all international airports - no need to mention it against each airport. If they weren't international they wouldn't be served, would they?
Secondly, nobody (well ok, very few) knows it as "Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez". I go0gled it and found out you meant Santiago, Chile (SCL) - why don't you just use that name?
I can work out Brasilia and Recife, but as for the rest - haven't a clue and can't be bothered to find out, as I doubt can many others, so it's unlikely to result in many positive responses.
As for the comment about your smoking habits, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, you are young and probably mean well, but you just come across as an idiot.
As to how to register as a different user name, well, you seem to have managed to register originally. Just re-register with a different name using the same procedure. In fact, (see Racedo's post below), you maybe would prefer no-one to see your posting history
Fine I accept I was wrong to put out official names for those airports, from now on I would refer to possible destinations by name only
I would not describe myself an idiot, rather a maverick and someone who thinks out of the box, but yes inexperienced
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!
Which is why I have revised the idea, under which BA serves South America from LHR/LGW, IB from MAD and maybe BCN) and LATAM would serve the rest of Europe and maybe BCN
To compensate, LATAM could code-share of this routes, or if ATI was allowed, share revenue on those routes
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?
If I was running BA, I would put TPE routes fairly low down the list of future routes, but if it is viable with an aircraft that has enough range to reach TPE, then I would be implanting it in the medium term
As for where LHR slots could be deployed, I suggest that they should launch more routes to South America, North Africa, East Asia/China, South East Asia, South Asia and maybe even Europe (for hub connections), but most of all Domestic (British Isles)
So what ARE the "better elsewhere" routes for BA out of LHR, now they have all the BMI slots to play with ? To me it seems that all the good opportunities have in fact been adequately served for many years, and what is currently unserved is just on the margins. The best that can be said about the BMI purchase is that it has stopped OTHERS from getting slots.
There are far more good opportunities for BA in serving more of South America, North Africa, East Asia/China, South East Asia, South Asia, East Africa, Middle East and Europe (for hub connections)
The problem is that there is a lack of space at both LHR and LGW for BA to launch more routes to those areas (LH/LX/OS/SN and AF/KL don’t have that problem), so they are forced to chose the most profitable routes of them all
That is why BA bought BMI in the first place, to partly fix this problem, but the trouble is that it is still not enough to compete with its rivals in Europe and increasingly the Middle-East
I feel that BA needs to buy a lot more slots at both LHR and LGW, starting with buying the LHR slots of Aer Lingus and Qantas (who have no reason to even bother serving LHR due to their deal with EK)
Remember LH/LX/OS/SN is allowed to hold 70% of the slots at FRA and similar amounts (any idea of getting exact figures?) at MUC and ZRH, BA holds 52.5% at LHR and 15% at LGW, so they could have no problem adding a lot more slots legally
When I was at the Customer Services desk in T5 First, a few days ago, a member of staff mentioned MEL, BNE and PER, not sure how much wishful thinking this was ?
Firstly, how reliable do you think that info is (do they have inside links with the right people etc)?
Also may I say that I am surprised that BA is even bothering to serve Australia (currently only SYD) after Qantas’s divorce with BA and their deal-with-the-devil with Emirates and with their best aircraft (777-300ER)
As for more services to Australia, if they are going to continue serving Sydney, then they might as well go on to serve Melbourne as well (MEL is growing rather fast in terms of an airline destination), I feel that BA should buy Qantas’s slots/route authorities at LHR (because they might as well give up the Kangaroo Route altogether, since they have effectively handed their customer base to Emirates)
This would mean that BA would gain 1 X daily to SYD and MEL (thus releasing 1 daily slot that is used for BA current SYD service), so BA would return to MEL
As for Perth, well it is doing well due to mining, if they launched a non-stop service with a premium heavy 787, then it could work…
As for BNE, I am not too sure….
Given the limited size of demand for UK-Australasia flights, I wouldn't put my money on that unless they want to expand into that market following Qantas' cutting of links with BA - but it seems highly unlikely.
If they are going to continue serving Sydney, then they might as well go on to serve Melbourne as well (MEL is growing rather fast in terms of an airline destination), I feel that BA should buy Qantas’s slots/route authorities at LHR (because they might as well give up the Kangaroo Route altogether, since they have effectively handed their customer base to Emirates)
This would mean that BA would gain 1 X daily to SYD and MEL (thus releasing 1 daily slot that is used for BA current SYD service), so BA would return to MEL
As for Perth, well it is doing well due to mining, if they launched a non-stop service with a premium heavy 787, then it could work…