BA & KLM, another turn on merry-go-round?
 

[quote] British Airways and KLM intend to initiate short-term, tactical cooperation on specific routes to the Middle East.
The cooperation is restricted to limited codesharing and schedule co-ordination for the summer 2002 season.
The move is in line with the European Commission guidelines, published in response to the current crisis in the airline industry after the US terrorist attacks in September and the Commission has been informed of the initiative.

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KL have been busy, they also start code-sharing with CO starting May.

I'm sure stock prises would jump if a merger was announced but ...
maybe a codeshare deal is better for the employees.
Eventually less lay-offs ?
Who knows, but a merger would scare me a little.
I work for the smaller of the two. <img src="eek.gif" border="0">

Whenever the topic of a future merger between the two comes up, one of the stumbling blocks is always the fact that the Netherlands-US bilateral could be revoked should KLM come under British ownership. I've always wonderd how Swissair/Sabena got round this particular problem. Does anyone on this august forum know?

Is everything going to be shared equally between LHR and SPL to the Middle East or will BA use their big boots and do nearly all the flights?

No BA will use this as a means to cut BA flights so that when there's an upturn they can reinstate the route using a franchise operator and reduce crew costs.

This is the first in a series of measures announced by BA to address the critical lack of office space at LHR. Use of KLMs corporate premises will make provision for thousands of new management appointments following the expected demise of non-critical functions such as pilots, cabin crew, and engineers that will result from the Weight Watchers committee report due in February.

The sooner we get out of operating aeroplanes and focus on managing management expansion the better.
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