Lufthansa & Singapore Announce A Joint Venture

Think the important questions are:

So will SQ flyers now get access to FRA FCT? And vice versa for LH in SIN?

Will SQ now let you book F with LH miles? Will LH let you book Swiss F with SQ miles?

I'd be interested if SIN will let LH SEN use miles for suite upgrades?

It may not necessarily lead to overall higher fares. After all the competition now is with the Gulf carriers - the likes of Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways. And there are still other carriers that would pose a competition to them - e.g. British Airways via LHR.

Ditto on the FCT access. Flying SQ Suites in March for the first time. Access the FCT would be great.

Hmm since they're both in *A isn't that already a sort of joint venture? Don't member airlines already align schedules and other services/features to overall compliment the alliance route network?

Apart from 'revenue-sharing' which I'd presume woulda been possible between alliance members already - but yeah apart from that I'm not sure I see the need for this. What additional benefits do JVs bring to the table for all stakeholders, that the preceding alliance doesn't already?!

I'm stumped by similar JVs that AA & BA have transatlantic. Or the JVs AA & JL/QF have transpacific. Considering they are all prominent members of Oneworld already, why the need to form superceding separate ventures. I thought the whole point of the alliance was exactly what they're trying to supposedly accomplish via JV.

I can understand DL & Virgin transatlantic JVs since they aren't alliance members. But once again don't get UA and one/some of their Asian *A partners with whom they have a transpac JV I believe.

SQ also has JV revenue-sharing arrangements with NZ.

My take (and this is my personal 2 cents) is that a JV is a deeper engagement between the 2 airlines. In SQ-Air NZ case, instead of each carrier operating 2 flights a day, they each operate 1 flight a day between Auckland and Singapore. Similar story could apply here - which means that overall load increases, revenue per mile goes up higher for both airlines and hence profits naturally rise higher.

The press statement also spoke about co-ordinating schedules - which is not something all airline alliance members do (it would be impossible to coordinate say Swiss, Lufthansa, SAS, etc... arriving to Singapore and connecting to all the regional/Australia destinations). So in most cases, they don't co-ordinate these. So a JV would allow the airlines to coordinate in this respect.

They also spoke about enhancing the frequent flyer program. Although no details are provided, I can only imagine that this would mean that more X class seats (for economy) and the equivalent for F and J would be opened up for their members - effectively means certain flights on Lufthansa would be deemed as "SQ-equivalent miles" or at least require less miles than a full-fledge Star Alliance redemption.

Naturally, this would be anti-competitive and would trigger anti-trust investigations; hence the airlines would need to file for permission to allow such a JV to go through.

I don't understand how do they plan to compete with the ME3 on a route from Germany to Australia (for example). Do they expect that someone would rather fly TXL-FRA-SIN-MEL rather than TXL-ME3-MEL?

Not surprised already have JV with SAS in Nordic markets.... I think Copenhagen will be next A350 destination btw. Reasons why? it would give SQ more departures to/from Copenhagen

@Denis: Indeed a very good point you have there. Yes, it would seem like they would expect someone to do a TXL-FRA-SIN-MEL rather than say TXL-DXB-MEL.

@Denis; Wilson Loo:
While I absolutely get your point, your choice of an example is kind of moot as there is no carrier operating TXL-DXB. For a one-stop trip TXL-MEL via ME, you have to fly via DOH or AUH.

Maybe not TXL, but when the new Berlin airport is up, maybe LH or SQ will fly BER to SIN with coordinated schedules to SYD, MEL, ...
With one stop to Australia from FRA, MUC, BER, DUS, VIE, ZRH and good connections in SIN, the JV can be very competitive against the ME3...

Lucky, did I hear you say SG is better than LH? wow!

@Denis; Wilson Loo:

The eastern part of Germany is still much poorer that than the western part (except for parts of Berlin of course), and have much lower population density and much higher average age due to many younger people moving to former west Germany for jobs.

Demand for trips to AUS or South east Asia is to put it mildly low out of those parts of Germany.

@No Name: LH has been in a JV with UA for years and they don't allow UA any of those benefits, so it doesn't seem likely SQ will get them. But we'll see.

I have to wonder if this partnership could mean that JFK-FRA on SQ metal is going away. Where they've announced plans to run NY nonstop again maybe they'll keep running it until then for prestige reasons, but that report earlier this year made it sound like those one-stop US flights were particularly painful for SQ's financials.

@Bgriff: they do, more or less. United Global Services members traveling in First Class do have access to the Lufthansa First Class lounges. Granted, that's very few passengers, but it's still noteworthy since otherwise LH FCLs are exclusively for customers of the Lufthansa Group. Also, UA and LH customers can upgrade on each other's metal with GPUs/confirmed upgrades.

No two JVs are equal.

In the case of LH and UA there are tangible benefits for customers, namely the option to upgrade using confirmed instruments (which is far superior to Star Alliance Upgrades which require you to buy full fares.

In the case of UA and NH, I'm not aware of a single tangible benefit. If anything, the JV has driven consolidation on SEA/NRT with United pulling out of the market and letting NH take over. And while NH has better service, United customers can't upgrade or receive lifetime miles.

Airlines form joint ventures in their own interest. That rarely translates into customer benefits, but it can. In the case of LH and SQ I wouldn't expect much except from schedule and fare alignment.

At this time, when you fly SIA and credit the miles to your Miles & More account, you don't get the executive bonus for status members. You only get it on LH, LX, UA and some other LH group airlines.
So I suppose that with the JV, the executive bonus will be applied.

@No Name
It doesn't have to be Berlin only, it can be Hamburg, Geneva or other cities outside of Germany/Austria/Switzerland. They can only compete out of hubs (and now Dusseldorf).

Most likely nothing will change for ZRH-SIN, as the "coordination" is already happening since Swiss (LX) started flying to SIN. SQ departs ZRH late morning and arrives SIN early morning +1 with A380, LX departs ZRH just before 11pm with arrival at 6pm on A340. Return flights though are within a 2 hour window around midnight...