PPRuNe Forums - BA seals alliance with AA

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I understand that there is a sizeable group of politicians, regional leaders and business people forming to argue that if there is such a thing as slot ownership, then a proportion of LHR slots should in effect be “owned” by the regions so that LHR actually serves the taxpayers of the whole of UK rather than just the residents southeast and the rest of the world’s transit passengers.

Just like the old days.

Branson is a serial bull****ter and anti-competitive as anyone when it suits.
Virgin is already in a similar competitive alliance so he is, also, hypocritical.
The existing alliances have a much bigger share of slots at Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris than AA/BA/IA etc would have at Heathrow so seems like a no-brainer, except in Bransonbull****.
Not supporting alliances, which are inherently anti-competitive, but cannot see how regulators could deny to some what they have allowed for others.
BTW looking forward to Ryanair's Stansted to 'New York'- Godknowswhere- only 97 miles to Manhattan but it will be competition !

I believe that in the past, when this proposed BA/AA tie up has been on the tables, part this issue has been slots at LHR. Somewhere recently someone from BA has said that in the current market, with the Open Skies agreement, they have accepted that losing slots in order to get this alliance is worth it.

BA also have their party trick hiding behind the bushes remember - OpenSkies. They are now able to compete with Air France-KLM and Lufthansa in their own territories, without relying on LHR. Losing some slots here and there isn't going to make much of a difference if at the end of the day, they're going to be better off.

No Need To Worry About This

BA/IB/AA projected alliance has to be greenlighted by US and EU competition authorities before start functioninghttp://static.pprune.org/images/smilies/embarass.gif

Given the anti-trust immunity granted to Star Alliance and Skyteam Alliance members, there is little ground for regulators to prohibit BA/AA/IB getting together.

In fact, it should be encouraged, given that it is solely the oneworld alliance that has been repeatedly stifled by EU bureaucrats.

The Regulators may be the least of managements problems. AA management blithely entered into these discussions while completely ignoring the Scope clause in their own pilot union's collective bargaining agreement.

From the Allied Pilots Association (APA):

Quote:

"APA’s current collective bargaining agreement precludes any joint business agreement between American Airlines and another carrier. The contract’s “Scope” clause explicitly states that “All flying performed by or on behalf of the Company or an Affiliate shall be performed by pilots on the American Airlines Pilots Seniority List.” The clause does contain a series of exceptions for code-sharing agreements, commuter affiliate operations and other situations, but does not include any exception for a joint business agreement.

“Thus far American Airlines management has not negotiated any agreement with APA that would permit the airline to enter into a joint venture with British Airways and Iberia."

Given the long-standing adversarial relationship between AA management and its unions a negotiated agreement isn't likely to happen quickly (vast understatement), if at all.