Open Skies, Britian and US. Will it every fly? How?

[Grendel]

Just a question for those on the other side of the pond. BA and any partnership with a major U.S. partner seems to be dead on arrival without increased acess to LHR.

Is this fair, reasonable, practical.

Your opinions, flames, retorts greatly appreaciated.

"It's so simple a child of five could understand it." "Fetch me a child of five." Groucho Marx.

[shon7]

Its totally fair. In fact they should abolish this whole anti-trust immunity thing. The airline industry today is a fiasco and as an analyst with Goldman Sachs put it ," a text-book study in value destruction."

Airline bosses have been predicting that consolidation is the only viable solution. I'd respond to them, " try getting better not bigger."

LHR and a BA alliance is a unique case , London being such a big financial center- consequently a lot of business travellers. Companies like Virgin have stood their ground on basis of better service alone. Let BA show if it can really stand its own ground without any of this price-fixing, anti-competitive alliance stuff. They have already seen it in the domestic market with the new low cost carriers -especially Ryanair- whose case only goes to prove that passengers would have everything to lose with an alliance of any sort. If the airline is good enough and provides great service they wouldn't have to worry about weak load factors and passenger numbers.

[dusk2dawn]

And then the odd player from the sideline: the European Court of Justice who on thursday 31th is scheduled to issue a preliminary ruling on the memberstates right to conclude and apply a bilateral "Open Skies" agreement with the United States.

[Notso Fantastic]

Grendel- you are a member of fairly long standing. Have you read the introductory spiel to this forum? This is a Rumours and News area. If you want a general and wide ranging discussion on aviation topics in general, like the other person wanting to start a discussion on A380 v Sonic Cruiser, may I suggest you remove it to the Questions Forum? This is Rumours & News!