For those of you who use oneworld to get across the Atlantic, an interesting option is opening up the form of Finnair joining the American Airlines/British Airways/Iberia Joint Venture.
Finnair will add its its AY code to some of the current Joint Venture between North America and the European Union as well as adding codes between plus Norway and Switzerland. Meanwhile, AA, BA and IB flight codes will be added to Finnair’s daily Helsinki-New York JFK flights.
The joint venture flights do not cover Asia long haul flights – and currently not routes from Helsinki to Chicago, Miami or Toronto.
This puts oneworld into a pretty dominant position across the Atlantic – with 102 flights a day now covered between North America and Europe. Both Star Alliance and Skyteam have joint venture agreements within their airline groups, allowing airlines to pool resources and flights.
Allister Paterson – Finnair’s senior vice president (commercial) states
“Our participation in this venture will significantly increase the portfolio of available destinations to Finnair’s existing customers, as well as open up Northern Europe to a whole new network of potential travellers.
“Fare combinability between the four carriers also brings more ticket flexibility to customers, as the fares and conditions are identical between the airlines. A business traveller soon will be able to combine American, British Airways, Iberian and Finnair routes flexibly when flying between Europe and North America.”
As the market across Europe becomes more dominated by Joint Ventures, aligned by airline alliances – there is becoming less and less room for non-aligned carriers to keep competitive. Even Virgin Atlantic is realising this – and working with Delta.
But another option across the pond is another option across the pond. Always useful…
I don’t see how oneworld is “dominant” over the North Atlantic.
Most pax ? No
Most flights ? No
Most carriers ? No
Most city pairs ? No