The latest airline semi-merger announcement came this week from British Airways, Iberia Airlines and American Airlines. The email message to travel agents also says they received anti-trust immunity along with Finnair and Royal Jordanian.
Of course, this is pitched as “significantly strengthening the customer benefits” of the Oneworld Alliance.
From a travel agent perspective, these mergers do have some advantages for clients, especially when it comes to fare combinability. But like many airline innovations, alliances can create as many problems as they solve.
The airlines state that “some benefits will be available in the fourth quarter of 2010, while other benefits may take longer to implement due to greater complexity and our desire to ensure our customers continue to be well served…”
Translation, let’s see what happens when we start working out the kinks.
Here are six potential kinks that come to mind.
1. As of today, although British Airways and American Airlines are Oneworld partners, passengers do NOT get reciprocal mileage credit on transatlantic flights. That’s right — flights between the U.S. and London, which of course, is the most popular route — don’t get reciprocal mileage credit.
This situation has been going on for many years, and I still get a few client a month who are surprised by it. Now, perhaps with the new antitrust immunity this will change. But, I’ve heard that promise before.
2. British Airways has four classes of service on their planes, the others, three. Which means fares in World Traveller Plus could be complicated, although presumably the airlines could figure out a way to combine them with coach fares on multi-airline itineraries.
Still, it could be an issue especially for business travelers used to having the option.
3. In one word — Heathrow. British Airways uses Terminal 5. Which is not exactly a hop, skip and a jump from the other terminals. More like a train, bus or cab ride. I’ve already had travelers complain about the British Airways-Iberia connections. Not to mention baggage issues. Other airports will likely see some gate shuffling, but Heathrow is a whole other league.
4. Code-shares are NOT one airline. This isn’t unique to OneWorld, but many travel agents will tell you codeshares create some of the biggest problems in our jobs.
Here’s a small list of what can go wrong: Code-share partners do not generally hold flights for each other; code-share flights are not always marked clearly, particularly in international airports; and not all code-share flights offer the same amenities.
Just last month I had a seasoned traveler tell me he had already booked his son’s flights on United, could I book him and his wife on the same return and get them all in economy plus? Except the son was booked on Continental with a United flight number. And they don’t even HAVE economy plus. (In the end, I advised him how to change the flight direct with United for a penalty.)
5. The blame game — otherwise known as “Not my problem.” This already exists whenever something goes wrong on a multi-airline itinerary. It’s almost always the “other airline’s” fault. But somehow it’s more frustrating with airline partners. Delta-KLM is particularly bad because KLM has no U.S. presence, and Delta must deal with all their problems, often when they can’t even access the information.
At this point, both American Airlines and British Airways have major reservations and sales presences in the U.S. With this semi-merger/alliance, I have to wonder if Iberia will even keep their already minimal U.S offices. Ditto eventually Finnair and Royal Jordanian.
6. Mileage programs. American Airlines and British Airways have very different programs. Just for starters, British Airways passengers using the lowest fare categories only accrue 25 percent of actual mileage. Upgrades are not available when using those super-discounted fares. Moreover, when an upgrade is sold out, it cannot be waitlisted.
With American, all fares accrue mileage, with the exception of some discount fares booked on their partners. Almost all fares are upgradable, albeit with significant co-pays. At some point the airlines will have to get these programs a little more in sync.
No doubt other issues will crop up as the airlines try to synchronize schedules, fares and program. Of course, this doesn’t even touch on labor issues. (At time of writing this post, in fact, British Airways crew have voted to strike, again.)
Alliances and mergers are certainly the wave of the future, so it’s not as if travelers have much choice about getting used to them.
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
