Posts Tagged ‘ oneworld

MX busy falling apart

Mexicana, oneworld’s newest member and the 4th oldest commercial airline in the world has been operating on borrowed time it seems – filing for bankruptcy protection in both the US and Mexico to stop moar planes being seized (depending on which report you read, two or three were temporarily held in Canada like this one – and another in Chicago besides); dropping long haul routes and stopping forward ticket sales do not for a healthy airline make.

It seems that the other Grupo Mexicana airlines MexicanaClick and MexicanaLink (single class domestic/short haul ops) are both still doing just fine – their lower cost base means that they’re both still profitable.

It’s never good to see an airline implode, especially not one that I really enjoyed flying with — smiling staff, clean planes and reasonable food/bev that you didn’t need to find a credit card for certainly made for some great flights — I sure hope they manage to get out of the mess they’re in. Doubt it, but it’s not played out yet.

New member for oneworld

oneworld, that fun-loving group of airlines has announced that they have a new member elect in form of Air Berlin. What’s curious about this is that Air Berlin have long been considered a low cost carrier, yet they have trimmings like long haul business class (not lie-flat yet but apparently in the works), lounges and a frequent flyer program.

Air Berlin have a laundry list of destinations in western Europe and a selection of longer haul destinations in eastern Europe, Asia, North America and the Caribbean. It’s an interesting network, but a lot of it is served from DUS and TXL – which aren’t served by any of the non-European oneworld carriers.

Air Berlin joins other members-elect waiting to join oneworld: S7 Airlines and Kingfisher Airlines.