by Lufthansa Flyer | Mar 25, 2012 | Airlines, Industry News |
This past week US Airways made it clear that it has more than a passive interest in acquiring bankrupt American Airlines. They had gone so far as to meet with American’s creditors to determine the viability of submitting a proposal to the bankruptcy court to acquire the airline. A week or 2 before that, US Airways had gone as far as registering various website addresses that included various combinations of the US Airways and American Airlines name.
Today, Bloomberg is reporting that IAG (parent of British Airways and Iberia) is looking at the possibility of acquiring a stake in American in order to prevent US Air from possibly pulling American Airlines from oneworld and bringing them to Star Alliance.
I thought it was interesting enough to see US Airways and Delta speculating about an American Airlines acquisition. Now it looks like British Airways wants to keep it all the family and acquire a stake in American. It would be a blocking gambit to prevent American Airlines from going to “enemy” alliances. No matter which way this jigsaw puzzle comes together, expect a regulatory nightmare for the approval process especially if British Airways is serious about it’s intentions.
With British Airways already dealing with anti-trust issues in their acquisition of BMI from Lufthansa (a decision must be issued by regulators by March 30), I was surprised to see British Airways jump right into the fray for the battle for American. Looks like they really, really, really want to keep the Star Alliance out of the UK. From their perspective, I fully understand the need for them to do this, but from a regulatory point of view, I really don’t know how they will pull it off. But it will make for great speculation in the weeks and months ahead.
What are your thoughts? How do you see the puzzle coming together??
by Lufthansa Flyer | Mar 23, 2012 | Industry News |
According to this Foxnews.com article, Washington is preparing to slash the budget on the program that allows pilots to carry a firearm in the cockpit during flight. The current budget of 25 million dollars may be cut in half which in effect may end the program. It seems like Washington spends more on programs far less important than something that allows pilots to defend themselves and their airlines, but I guess Washington has made little if any sense lately. Citing the article, the Airline Pilots association breaks down the cost of the program to $15.00 per flight.
Thats right, apparently it costs only $15 a flight for a pilot to have the training and ability to have a firearm in the cockpit. But yet Washington deems this an expense not worth having in the budget and feels that taxpayer money is better spent on something like providing food aid to North Korea rather than help protect Americans.
We are subjected to all sorts of weird fees and surcharges on our airline tickets that fall into oblivion yet there’s not enough funding to cover an airline captains ability to protect his or her aircraft? We pay for the three ring circus called the TSA yet $15 per flight is too much to bear?
Another interesting point made in the article is the fact that there was a program prior to the 9/11 attacks that allowed pilots to be armed, but the program was terminated the summer before the attacks. Take that for what it’s worth……
by Lufthansa Flyer | Mar 22, 2012 | Industry News |
This is starting to get fatiguing. First it was the announcement of the foolish Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) which is a very transparent attempt to raise cash for general obligations (read as bailing out the underperformers of the European Union) and the Scheme itself has little (or NO) accountability to actually improve airline emissions in the EU. Basically airlines are being surcharged for exceeding their allotted Emission Credits as allocated by the brain trust of the EU. The EU thinks that every airline in the world will comply. Think again……
Forced into being bedfellows, Lufthansa, Air France, British Airways (among others) and Airbus banded together and asked the EU to reconsider the punitive measures because of the fear of reprisals…..so far this call has fallen on deaf ears in Brussels.
Next, China started tapping on its brakes, and has slowed (read halted) their national carriers from pursuing ordering aircraft from Airbus (Interpret this as the loss of billions of euro in revenue and potential thousands of jobs lost). You can’t really blame China at all.
Then, China expands their theater of operation in the battle against the EU and tells Lufthansa that they can not operate their A380’s on a Frankfurt-Shanghai route. Here I do fault the Chinese, since you attacked an innocent bystander who is siding with you in this brewing conflict.
NOW,Russia joins the bandwagon and has delayed approving the rights for Lufthansa to operate cargo flights out of Russia (through Aerologic). Lufthansa has asked for the approval of 30 routes, and only 11 were granted. Russia did not try to veil this action. This is their reprisal to the EU’s foolishness.
The problem here is that the nations who are not going to comply (and who can blame them) with the ETS are lashing out on the wrong parties. Lufthansa has unfairly become the scapegoat and somehow has been mis-identified as being responsible for the EU’s actions. Lufthansa has been very vocal in it’s opposition the ETS and is aggressively pursuing resolution. It makes no sense to me why countries would punish an airline in the way Lufthansa has been punished recently. If I’m China or Russia, I can think of better ways to send my message. If I’m Russia, I think it’s time for a re-think on natural gas rates. If I’m China, I consider stopping my capital investments into European entities and infrastructure. Then perhaps the EU will finally begin to realize that they are not in a position to be the Bully in the neighborhood. Rant over. 🙂
