Oneworld the End?

That does show that Star is a quality alliance, I have never disputed it. Star does strive for quality also, must be an obvious part of their success, but what they do not do is market it as much as Oneworld.
Oneworld- “oneworld™ revolves around you,”
Star- “The Airline Network For Earth,”
You see what I mean? Oneworld markets itself as a quality alliance rather than quanitity, whereas Star although a good quality alliance, markets itself as a global alliance with worldwide connections. I don’t dispute Star is a quality alliance it is just seems how it is marketed to the traveller.

Adrian, I can understand your points. However, I completely disagree with your argument that ONLY Oneworld strives for quality of service. I have no doubt that Oneworld strives for this. How can one say, however, that Oneworld strives for quality of service, moreso than Star or even Skyteam, per se? I’ve already given a few examples of why Star is good to me, but I’m going to give you another. Last summer I purchased an economy class ticket on United: LAX-AKL-SYD, with the same routing on return. For the record, I love that layover in AKL on the outbound, as a nice shower in the UA/NZ lounge makes you feel like a champion after an 11.5 hour flight, prior to boarding the remaining 3 hours to SYD. Much better than flying nonstop LAX-SYD, and yet I digress… Anyhow, the LAX-AKL portion was flown by UA and the AKL-SYD portion was flown by NZ, with a UA flight number. On the outbound, I redeemed 25,000 miles and upgraded to business class. The upgrade was only supposed to apply to the UA portion of the flight, not the NZ portion. Prior to boarding the 2nd leg in AKL, the gate agents called me up to the podium and informed me that they were upgrading me on the AKL-SYD portion, as well. They had noticed on my ticket, apparantly, my situation, so they decided to do it out of the kindness of their hearts. I definitely see that as a situation, where a member of the alliance is striving to make a passenger of a partner member, happy. These types of situations have to be viewed as quality, despite quantity. Are these situations more frequent on Oneworld than on Star or Skyteam? Who’s to say?

You can generally check bags through for your whole journey, irrespective of which airlines are involved.

Eg. 18 months ago I checked my bags through

CPT-JNB-LHR-IOM with the first 2 flights on SAA and the 3rd flight on BA.

However what is not so good is a difference in allowances. Eg. BA has 23Kg, but on the same route with the same aircraft (744, LHR-MEL) Qantas only has 20Kg. I know, only 3Kg, doesn’t sound significant. But when they charge you excess, you change your mind! Oneworld have made bugger all progress towards achieving a “common oneworld experience” for passengers. Isn’t that what the benefit of an alliance is, in the first place ?!

Originally posted by greekdude1
How could Star not be quality? Singapore, Thai, Lufthansa, Air New Zealand, Austrian, United….. That’s some pretty damn good quality to me! I echo everything Mongu says, and will throw in some examples. I’ve flown on several Star members and always get the FF mileage automatically put into my account. If I had to fax a copy of boarding pass, ticket, etc, every time I took a partner flight, that would really suck! I flew from Australia to Europe and back on Singapore airlines business class on an award ticket, and had never before purchased a ticket on Singapore Airlines. How could that not be quality? Lastly, I’m flying United in and out of Heathrow in a week. I purchased that ticket separately because I had a special companion coupon. Then I purchased a rountrip ticket on BMi from LHR to AMS. on the return, I have a 3 hour layover in Heathrow, then continue on back home. Even though I have 2 separte tickets/itineraries, I’m going to be able to check my bags all the way through to my final destination when I check in with BMi in Amsterdam. I won’t have to re-check in with UA in Heathrow. How is that not quality?

See, I never quite get this whole problem with through check in…

The last time I flew Swissair, in August 01, I had an eticket for my BSL-ZRH-LHR-ZRH SR flights (it was a reward ticket), and was connecting at LHR to a BA flight to GLA, for which I had a paper ticket.

I didn’t have any problems checking in at BSL through to GLA (Swissport at BSL also handle BA, after all), although my bags didn’t arrive till following day, after they got lost at ZRH… one came from LHR on BA, the other from LHR on bmi :confused:.

Coming back, I was more surprised that I could check my bags through at GLA on SR despite only having an eticket, although I needed to get my boarding pass at the SR transfer desk at LHR.

Mongu,
I see your point. Conceivably from my viewpoint as an observer rather than a passenger, it does seem as if there is quite a bit of integration with all the different code shares and agreements taking place. However, from the passenger’s point it is very different and this is where unity is needed between the airlines to make the alliance more accessible and harmonious for the passenger.

I agree the alliance should no evolve intirely around the BA/AA relationship though as I have said time and time again, it is a joke that two alliance partners can not code share across the Atlantic (that is a matter for the UK and US authorities). BA and AA, however, should in effect turn their intentions away from this and focus more on the positive areas of the alliance with more exposure being given at other hubs. Frankfurt is the major hub for Star but so is Vienna, Stockholm etc, which should for Oneworld seperatley as well. Oneworld could utilise other airlines more on routes on especially such as the trans atlantic ones with airlines such as Iberia (who have anti-trust immunity with American) recieving more exposure with less time places on the AA and BA relationship. Allowing Swiss in would be a perfect example.

Greekdude,
I agree Star has some excellent carriers. Lufthansa, Singapore, SAS, all prime examples. However, where Oneworld is different in my opinion, is that is strives for quality of service rather than quality of network, which is still good because of huge dominance in economic centres rather than regional. Star on the other hand have good quality though do not exploit it as much as Oneworld with the quality of network being more important. I suppose in a sense is better because they are doing what an alliance was proposed for and helping out the passenger more. I would think connections would be higher on a priority list for a passenger rather than quality to a certain extent, this is where Oneworld needs better exposure and the only way to get it is through expansion.

Kabir, Adrian states that Oneworld strives for quality, not quantity. I just wanted to point out that although Star is rather large (quantity), that they surely did not lack in quality, by any stretch of the imagination.

whoever said Star doesent have quality. The only thing about Star is its size, i wonder how long can they sustain Star. Till now they are doing fine and are providing good and convinient service.

How could Star not be quality? Singapore, Thai, Lufthansa, Air New Zealand, Austrian, United….. That’s some pretty damn good quality to me! I echo everything Mongu says, and will throw in some examples. I’ve flown on several Star members and always get the FF mileage automatically put into my account. If I had to fax a copy of boarding pass, ticket, etc, every time I took a partner flight, that would really suck! I flew from Australia to Europe and back on Singapore airlines business class on an award ticket, and had never before purchased a ticket on Singapore Airlines. How could that not be quality? Lastly, I’m flying United in and out of Heathrow in a week. I purchased that ticket separately because I had a special companion coupon. Then I purchased a rountrip ticket on BMi from LHR to AMS. on the return, I have a 3 hour layover in Heathrow, then continue on back home. Even though I have 2 separte tickets/itineraries, I’m going to be able to check my bags all the way through to my final destination when I check in with BMi in Amsterdam. I won’t have to re-check in with UA in Heathrow. How is that not quality?

I accept your argument Adrian, if they actually were expanding upon their mutual cooperation.

However they do not cooperate from a passenger viewpoint as well as Star does. As a basic example, if you take a flight with a Oneworld airline you cannot put those miles on your BA FF account, unless you are prepared to go through a lot of hassle. I did once get my miles added automatically on a codeshare flight operated by Qantas – but on another Qantas flight the following week I had to print off a form and fax it over to BA, with a copy of my boarding card stub…..that is essentially obstructive, don’t you think? They are plainly counting on lots of people not bothering with the hassle, to reduce their FF liability.

Their systems are reputedly not as hooked in to each others as Stars’ are. They can’t even synchronsise basic stuff like baggage allowances on otherwise identical tickets.

The whole alliance does not and should not revolve purely around BA/AA, so for BA to blather on about Bermuda II and the like is not especially a reason for the alliance to stagnate. Maybe the other members should be taking a more active leadership role. Or maybe the two big boys should make sure other members have enough management nous to take the lead, rather then vainly rabbiting on about quality (hey, several Star members would walk into oneworld).

maybe they do take quality over quantity, which of-course is very good….but they have to see there position in the long-run, for which they must keep expansion in mind.

Does it really matter though that they do not expand their operations at the moment? They are moving ahead with their bilateral agreements and significant integration is occurring with further code sharing between existing airlines. This is therefore quite a large step for the alliance.

Oneworld strives for quality over quantity, I do not think there is any denial, however, as I have said, does their lack of quantity matter? Fine, 16 airlines can do more to access regional gateways than 8 can and that is where Star is an excellent alliance with more key hubs, but with Oneworld they have dominance in many of the key areas of cultural and economic of the world, using Australia as an example. With this it has enabled them to go beyond Europe as a connector but to South America, for example, with LAN who is thriving (LAN Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Dominica) and most of the European airlines having ATI with AA.

I know a lot rests upon Heathrow, Oneworld’s progression in quantity of airlines is stalled because there is no access on the large Heathrow to the US routes that puts airlines off. What lacks is utilisation of other hubs for the transatlantic operations. While Frankfurt is huge for Star, they have divulged into Copenhagen, Vienna and Stockholm, which Oneworld has not with too much effort placed on operations at Heathrow rather than Madrid or Dublin etc.

I think what this article gives is the impression that expansion is what the future rests upon. All I am saying is that while in my opinion too much priority is placed on Heathrow with it being a fairly successful Oneworld hub though no access to the key US market, I think quality over quantity is the way in which Oneworld operates. Key market dominance in economic centres ahead of regional operations is Oneworld’s ethos though I think it should divulge into smaller regional operations in future expansion.

well they are not expanding there operations as yet.

The future isn’t so bleak, but you have to admit oneworld are not going to go anywhere very fast.

Negative ‘opinions’ indeed, albeit, they are coming right from the source and not from one of our polls in this forum. This article is reality, and you could claim the indivial success of each of these members till you’re blue in the face, but that doesn’t sugarcoat the situation.