Posted by Seth on March 11, 2010 under News | 
Good reasons for flight delays are very few and far between. Still, it seems that Air Canada discovered a pretty decent one, albeit by accident. Call it a passenger revolt that was successful.
Apparently the passengers on a scheduled Vancouver – Montreal flight a couple weeks ago simply refused to board the plane and the flight was delayed waiting for them. The flight was scheduled to depart right around the time that the Olympics gold medal match for men’s hockey went into overtime. Passengers watching on the televisions in the airport terminal refused to get on the plane, choosing to watch the end of the game instead.
Good for them, I say. Every now and then the airlines need to be reminded that the customers are the reason they are flying.
Links:
Posted by Seth on April 8, 2009 under Uncategorized |
As part of their announced move to the Star Alliance, Continental applied for anti-trust immunity (ATI) from US and foreign regulators. The ultimate goal is to be able to co-market flights across the Atlantic with their new partners, including Air Canada, Lufthansa and United, and to pool revenue from those flights. The ATI application was filed almost a year ago and yesterday afternoon the US DoT filed their response to the request, approving the deal. Here’s part of the DoT’s statement from the response:
In a show-cause order issued today, the Department tentatively decided to grant immunity to new alliance member Continental and to allow Air Canada, Deutsche Lufthansa Airlines, United Air Lines, and Continental Airlines to place a portion of their international air services within a new joint venture, to be called Atlantic Plus-Plus. Under the venture, the carriers would jointly arrange capacity, sales and marketing as well as share revenues.
The Department tentatively concluded that granting antitrust immunity to Continental to join the alliance and approving the joint venture would be in the public interest because it would support increased levels of service in international markets served by the carriers, give consumers more travel options and shorter travel times, and reduce fares.
So the good news, from the DoT view, is that they expect to see more routes and more travel options, as well as lower fares. But is that really going to happen? We are rapidly moving to an industry where there are really only 3 main players in the transatlantic market, defined by the three ATI alliances (it is expected that the BA/AA/Iberia application will be approved in the next month or so, just like this one was). So instead of having lots of competition on the routes across the pond there will be little pockets of competition. Even worse is that where the route connects hubs from ATI partners, there is real reason to worry. There is no reason for Delta and Air France to compete on service between Atlanta and Paris. Ditto for United and Lufthansa on service between San Francisco and Frankfurt.
I like the idea of stronger alliances and better coverage. I think that it actually has worked thus far in the great experiment that the three major alliances have run over the past decade. But I do still worry a little bit about the ATI part of the deal. I really would prefer to not lose access to the cheap transatlantic fares that I have been enjoying so far this year.
The other significant aspect of this announcement is that it means the last major hurdle has been cleared in Continental’s efforts to make the leap to Star Alliance later this year. The countdown continues: T-200 days and counting.
Posted by Seth on December 9, 2008 under Uncategorized |
The European Open Skies coverage is spreading. It was announced today that Canada has reached an agreement with the EU to remove just about every restriction on flights between the two regions. While foreign carriers will still not be eligible to operate flights wholly on the other side of the pond, it seems that there will be no limits on foreign investment on either side of the deal. This could really change things in the industry.
Lufthansa has been on a ridiculous shopping spree of late, picking up carriers all over the place. They bought a piece of jetBlue earlier in the year. They just announced a deal to buy an additional 50% of bmi which will close in about a month. Austrian and Swiss are also now in the Lufthansa fold, and there are rumors of SAS, though I’m not sure how reliable those are. And Lufthansa has a pretty strong relationship with Air Canada thanks to their membership in the Star Alliance group and also thanks to some anti-trust immunity that they enjoy on trans-Atlantic flights. This deal opens up a chance for Lufthansa to buy part or all of Air Canada.
Even if Lufthansa doesn’t buy out part of Air Canada, the deal enables even tighter integration of their systems and route networks. A decade ago when the global alliances started up they were a necessity because no single carrier had enough coverage to provide service around the world. Recent moves by Lufthansa, the Delta/Northwest merger and rumors of a Qantas/British Airways link-up seem to be pushing the concept of these alliances towards a quaint historical reference. I don’t really think that they will go away, but a couple of behemoths are really trying to put their stamp on some of the most traveled routes to consolidate control.
