A couple of days ago I wrote about how American is cutting their codeshare agreement with both Etihad & Qatar. It’s interesting that American will no longer codeshare with either of these airlines, though is continuing their frequent flyer partnership, meaning you can continue to earn and redeem AAdvantage miles for travel on those two…
Continue reading: What Are The Odds That American Completely Cuts Ties With Etihad & Qatar?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
@Lucky If there any additional cuts would you expect EY and QR to give the same notice to travelers or could it be immediate?
Lucky, would OneWorld even allow them to cut FF ties with QR? I see what you're saying about mileage rates, and it would be pretty easy to cut ties with Etihad, but I think you're right that this is AA trying to do something that makes headlines without having much impact on them. I for one wouldn't be too happy if redemption options on QR went away, but I'm not sure whether it would have too much impact on the broader AA flying community.
Either way, as long as they don't cancel my award ticket on QR next week I'll manage 🙂
"The reason American didn’t completely cut ties with Etihad and Qatar is obvious, at least in part — the impact on the AAdvantage program would be huge if American miles couldn’t be redeemed on Etihad or Qatar. These airlines offer one stop service from the US to so many cities that couldn’t otherwise easily be reached."
If you think this is the real reason, you know very little of what's going on Ben. Believe it or not, FFP considerations are the least important ones in this type of situations...
So, with the 'cutting of code shares', the only one getting impacted here is American.
Qatar is still coding AA flights (and AA getting revenue from this - so how much are they cutting ties?).
It just means that AA no longer is coding flights to india, pakistan, africa. They're going to lose revenue in selling those flights.
One thing that you haven't considered here is the impact on corporate traffic flying these routes, particularly corporate traffic that comes under the "Fly America Act". This allowed both US government traffic and corporations working on projects that have funding contributed by the government to book on the EY and QR services on AA code in order to fulfill the requirements of the act. In a way, it's a big win for EK, as they continue to hold B6 code on their flights to the US. This would have a more significant impact on the viability of many of their flights than the feed generated by AA connecting services, particularly as AA could generate more revenue on these domestic flights when sold as part of their own domestic network.
I'd LOVE to see Alaska Airlines step in and code share with both Qatar and Etihad! Plus offer redemption opportunities as-well!
Etihad will cut their flight to Dallas, everything else will go on as normal due to the OneWorld relationship between AA and Qatar.
I agree with Roberto that FFP is probably at the very bottom of the list of concerns.
@ Roberto - If you know the real reason, why not enlighten the rest of us? Nothing more annoyingly smug than a person who claims others don't know what they are talking about but won't bother to say what that is.
@chancer, the real reason is that Qatar wants to buy part of AA and AA is trying to push back.
Exactly right! Ben is betraying the fact that he is a miles-and-points blogger, not someone with any experience or knowledge of the business of running an airline. The number of AAdvantage members that especially care about being able to redeem miles on Qatar or Etihad has to be tiny.
As I sit in the FC lounge in AUH I wonder what this means for US based folks who travel to and through Abu Dhabi.
My QR flight PHL-DOH on 7/12 was full. A small group from YYZ connected at PHL and I'm sure there were others connecting as well. I'm not at all convinced that the code share is the reason QR does so well at PHL, it might be the ability to go to places like BKK or KUL in one stop on nice aircraft with excellent service. My international travel has changed significantly in favor of QR over AA at PHL....sometimes all it takes is a smile. BTW I was allowed to pay cash to upgrade out of PHL (my fare was one of the three codes that are not supposed to be upgradeable) and we were given a complimentary upgrade on our DOH-KUL segment. That NEVER happens on AA even for an EXP.
@Abe. I was on a $699 r/t PHL-KUL via DOH. I paid $850 for the upgrade to DOH (was first told it was $940 but then only charged $850) The upgrade DOH-KUL was complementary due to an oversold economy.
Etihad should probably consider partnering with JetBlue to feed their A380s out of JFK. But I'm gonna be a joker here and suggest that Etihad makes a quid pro quo deal with Delta if they were to allow Delta's money be invested in 9W..
Bit of a stretch but maybe, just maybe if this all fell apart AA would return to flying the direct ORD-DEL route which when discontinued Etihad and Qatar took up the slack
It would be poetic justice if EY & QR open the floodgates of premium award space to AA members. I would laugh uncontrollably and grab the popcorn to watch AA's response...
How is this going to affect domestic feed? Surely American isn't refusing to allow people to connect onto Qatar and Etihad - they just will be flying on an AA coded flight not EY/QR any more?
I think ME3 should ignore the big 3 and code share with Alaska, JetBlue and even Southwest. I am trying to avoid the big 3 anyway.
@iv~ Alaska taking Etihad and/or Qatar onboard as partners at some point is not impossible given their eclectic grab-bag of partners. It might go some way towards placating those MileagePlan members still smarting at the infamous Emirates debacle Alaska perpetrated on its loyal following a while back. #shooting-oneself_in_the-_foot.
@Rob, fully agree with you. In fact, you would have been denied boarding in case of oversold economy if you were flying AA (if not dragged through the aisle with facial fractures.) I myself flew from ATL on both QR and TK recently, avoiding connecting domestic flight and driving to ATL instead. I live 3.5 hrs away and found the drive not to be very difficult. ME3 and TK service is way better and AA will be the loser in the long run. I have been very loyal to AA until recently but now I don't care anymore. And yes, @Roberto, I don't care about FFP anymore 😉
"and is an extension of our stance against the illegal subsidies that these carriers receive from their governments."
Illegal by what law would be my question? I lived 5 years in ME and both labor law and fuel pricing/taxes is very different. To me that statement is just a way to sway the ignorant average Joe's out there by referring to US law. Do they maintain that at Guantanamo too? At the end of the day ME is in the middle of the world, which also makes it a great connecting hub. Get in the ring and up your game I would say to any US carrier I ever flown with, as they are consistently worse than European carriers (I'll just leave Asian and ME carriers out of that comparision for fairness).
Typically shallow post from our self appointed aviation and geopolitical expert.
To him, the world revolves around award space and earning charts and nothing else.
Come on Ben, this is a really shallow analysis of the situation. There are far more complex geopolitical and economic variables at play, compared to which the ability to use AAdvantage miles is insignificant.
they still have the interline agreements and their prorate agreements. EY and QR will still get all the feed they need in the US to make most of their routes viable. If AA were to take THOSE away, then that would be very serious for the h3 carriers and really make a point.
@ Roberto. Don't just say that FFP isn't the reason without offering a alternative. I was interested in your theory.
Was just chatting with a friend from Emirates yesterday. He told me that the cuts will come nxt year. Should redeem all my AA miles before that.