They may be able to pull it off

Howdy,

I can see them doing well in cities like Providence, RI, Hartford, CT, Baltimore, and Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Certainly they will not fly to Boston, New York, or Washington, DC. In the West Coast I could see them doing Oakland, CA and that may work well too. In the Midwest Milwaukee and St. Louis could be targets. There are lots of smaller cities that are not served. There are also some large markets like St. Louis without service at all to Europe.

Providence would be a good city for them because they have the huge Boston market nearby including the southern and south western suburbs. and about two million people living on Cape Cod, south eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and parts of Connecticut. Right now the only option they have is Boston or driving 200 miles down to New York.

Hartford lost its Northwest service to Amsterdam. So Hartford would be a real option for them.

Milwaukee and St. Louis want service to Europe badly. I could see them getting some money from both cities or states. If they move into St. Louis this may force American Airlines to consider restarting their old TWA routes to Gatwick.

It will be interesting to see how they deal with charging for luggage and food. Now that most American and Canadian carriers are charging for bags, the public is now for the most part use to it. I hope it happens. We need more low fare carriers in the US and Canada; Canada particularly. Although the problem with Canada is where would they fly too as Ryan does not like to fly to major cities. So Toronto certainly would be tough for them. Buffalo, New York might be an option (not sure about US Customs). I can now see them advertising their Toronto flights to Buffallo, Ontario :eek:? Even for them that would be a tough one.

But this is just America. I am not certain about rights to Hong Kong, but with the loss of that low frills carrier (forgot their name), that may be a market for them too.
Bill

Kind of ironic

SR (sorry Swiss) and SN back together again!

Bill

That’s great

Reading this one made my day! :diablo:

Now things become interesting

If Lufthansa infact buys BD, then things become interesting in the EU. LH will be changing its thinking as what its role is. Currently it is a German airline with a small Swiss fling. If they buy BD then they become a true EU airline. As an American I think this is good for LH and certainly BD. It is an evolution in European thinking, that is out of the box (the German box). I know this is going to **** off UK members, but this is just a further evolution of Europe as a unified state.

BA will now have to make the next move and I assume that would be IB.

I would like to add that the empoyees of AZ did AF/KL a big favor. What was AF/KL thinking anyway? An ego in Paris brought down to earth I suppose? AF has become a great airline. AZ would likely have destroyed it.

Bill K
Boston, Massachusetts

EU would not allow it

The EU would never allow a merger of BA and British Midland Airways. This would be a disaster for British and European travelers. While a merger between BA and AA would be remarkable, the US government will never allow it. Even if it passed the US authorities, the EU would force the two to give up LHR slots. They will never agree to this.

Bill

Howdy,

On my BEA 1964-65 winter timetable, BEA had eleven flights mostly with the Vanguard.

Bill
Boston, Massachusetts