The major airline alliances — StarAlliance, oneworld, and SkyTeam — may be in for some competition. JetBlue is linking up with Ireland’s AerLingus to create what may be the blueprint of an international discount alliance.
It’s too early to declare this a “real deal” yet, but in a few years, it might be a contender. Aer Lingus is already quitting the oneworld alliance on March 31, 2007, following its decision to be more like a discount carrier. Unlike its Irish brethren, Ryanair, Aer Lingus still flies widebody planes long-haul and has a business class cabin, so it’s not quite a discount carrier. It’s in that same intermediate space as US Airways, calling itself a low cost carrier, but still featuring legacy carrier networks and services.
Much like Aer Lingus isn’t quite a discount carrier, the proposed alliance is half-baked at this point. There isn’t even any codesharing on deck. Rather, by the end of summer 2007, each airline’s website will feature a “button” to the other’s website. Whoo.
A global discount alliance might work, and other discounters are toying with alliances already. AirTran and Frontier have an agreement allowing cross-selling and mileage-earning. Southwest and ATA have a similar deal.
Alliances are a mixed bag: On the one hand, they offer you a broader range of destinations to book on a single ticket, ostensibly with point-earnings, mutually-recognized status, and a global network of lounges, etc. to boot. But they’re never as smoothly integrated as the marketers claim. (For some more discussion of the downsides of alliances, see here. For some more color on the pros and cons of codeshares more generally, see here.)
In a “traditional alliance,” in which two ostensible competitors work together to sell each other’s flights, there’s a risk that consumers lose. For example, Lufthansa and United both fly Washington to Frankfurt, but since they cross-sell each other’s flights as codeshares, they don’t really compete. The companies are given a license to collude on pricing. It’s a fair assumption that fares creep up when codeshares crop up on the same routes.
But a jetBlue-Aer Lingus alliance may be different in this regard. JetBlue doesn’t fly to Dublin, and AerLingus doesn’t fly within the United States. No overlapping networks, so no collusion is possible. Win-win, for airlines and consumers? We’ll see.
What they need is a good name. BlueLingus?
Related:
- The shortcomings of airline alliances, and Star Alliance in particular
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February 7th, 2007 at 3:23 am
In the Wonderland of travel governed by US Government contracting rules, codeshares do have a significant use. If you go read the Fly America Act, you’ll find that any Federal employee or contractor is basically required to take a US-flagged carrier on the initial leg in or out of the country.
But in flyertalk terms, it doesn’t matter what metal you’re on. There was a ruling issued that it’s just the ticket stock that matters. Gotta be American paper.
In case you’re wondering, yes, this does lead to more money being spent. That’s the whole point of the regulation, or else it would just say “take the cheapest flight”. At one point I took a last minute IAD->FRA flight on LH. I was forced to buy the ticket as a UA codeshare, costing a grand more than buying the exact same coach seat on LH stock. But hey, it’s an American company getting the money…
I’m currently trying to get a ticket to a rather odd destination. Right now I have a DL ticket, but *A flights would be both cheaper and better. A foreign *A carrier has plenty of seats, and UA has a codeshare on this route. Unfortunately, the codeshare partner is being weird about releasing bucket availability to UA. And when the bucket does open up, nobody can book it; even united.com refuses to admit that the destination even exists, even though there’s a UA flight number to it!
February 7th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Will Oasis be next in that new alliance?
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2007-01-10-oasis-coming-to-oakland_x.htm?csp=34
Would connect nicely JetBlue’s Oakland flights.
February 7th, 2007 at 11:46 am
The Lufthansa/United codeshare across the Atlantic is a special case in that it is more than a regular codeshare. This is a revenue sharing arrangement (sometimes referred to as airshare) which means unlike normal codeshares there is no incentive for the airlines to compete with each other). So, not as good as normal codeshare you might say. On the upside, it means upgrade instruments can be used across the airlines – superceding normal rules about only being able to use on own metal.
As for a low cost carrier alliance, there has been talk for years of Virgin Blue (Australia’s low cost carrier) possibly joining/starting such an alliance. So far nothing has come from it. Alliances are quite expensive, at least in the traditional sense. Perhaps there will be a new budget version of an alliance without all the frills we get from the big three (One World, Sky Team and Star Alliance)?
October 29th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
[...] this isn’t the kind of thing that happens overnight. (Remember the jetBlue-Aer Lingus “alliance“?) Still, if Omni’s plans go forward, your local low cost carrier could soon be selling [...]
February 1st, 2010 at 4:36 pm
[...] Lingus and JetBlue have announced what they call a ticket-booking alliance. As Upgrade : Travel Better notes, it isn’t much compared to the traditional big three alliances (One World, Sky Team and [...]
March 30th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
[...] my prediction from February 6 last year, that jetBlue and Aer Lingus would try to sync up in an alliance? Looks like the prediction was right, according to WSJ reports. But Aer Lingus might find some [...]
March 31st, 2010 at 9:11 pm
[...] What makes this especially unexpected is JetBlue’s recent moves toward Lufthansa (which is a part-owner of JetBlue) and AerLingus. [...]