The Battle for JAL’s heart is well and truly joined, with Delta offering $1 Billon and now American offering $1.1 Billion.
Its fast turning into one heck of a battle for the Far East (as whoever wins gets a very big chuck of the network out there to integrate into their own airline or alliance)
American is part of OneWorld (which JAL is part of) whilst Delta would take JAL into Skyteam, sewing up the north Asia major alliances with Star Alliance. (Star has ANA and Asiana, Skyteam have Korean Air and JAL currently is in OneWorld)
JAL itself has slumped BADLY, requiring four government bailouts to keep going, and with a 6 month loss of $1.5 Billion – whoever does buy the share in JAL has a lot of work to turn around that airline.
I can’t predict this one by a long way – however it turns out will lead to a pretty strong home at Narita and well beyond Japans borders….
