Have you heard of Meridiana? Chances are you haven’t, and that’s for good reason. They’re a small, nearly bankrupt airline in Italy with about 20 planes, half of which are ancient MD-80s.
Continue reading: Qatar Airways Wants To Invest In WHICH Airline?!
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Meridiana flies to JFK. I recently heard about them because friends booked them to Italy.
Flew Meridiana MXP-CTA (Catania, Sicily) last year.... wasn't too bad, serviceable for a short flight.
I wouldn't really consider IG to be an LCC - it's actually a decent full-service airline. I've been hoping that they might join oneworld sometime soon (since they partner in some form with most European OW members - in fact, their FFP even uses avios) - so hopefully this will all work out and IG will be one step closer!
This actually strikes me as quite smart. They just want the footprint, gates and entree into the EU and Italy.
Qatar has the capital and organizational heft to completely remake the operation. The likely nominal price for the initial stake will be far less than the political challenges of trying to do this de novo.
My favorite quote from the Meridiana website comes from the Fleet page where they describe their antiquated MD-82's as:
"Built with the most recent and tested technologies with attention paid also to future environmental and ecological requirements."
Er...
On same note, Etihad's other step child is (slowly) preparing for direct US flights.
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/business.php?yyyy=2015&mm=03&dd=26&nav_id=93614
For anybody thinking Etihad is just throwing money anyplace that could stick, consider this: Etihad gave 10-year loan to Serbian government to buy new planes for Air Serbia in exchange for stake in Air Serbia. (JU has plenty of code shares in Europe as very few airlines are keen on wasting planes and crew-hours for BEG)
If crazy idea with JU flies, Etihad gets dividends and connecting passengers. If JU idea does not fly, Etihad gets interest and loan back. Single-sided win-win?
Lucky, i looked up meridiana and it seems that this was actually a very interesting addition to avios ffp that no one really covered.
Perhaps u should do a review n also share how is availability like in awards for their longer haul premium class (and which other routes is using 767 besides jfk?), as well as shorter routes awards n cabins.
I think qr is quite smart here as what they plan to do is buying meridiana's network (they got rights to JFK! N places like Male!), and increase the frequency n probably put bigger planes as well. EK has lots of issues with their mxp-jfk route.. but if its meridiana under qr.. cant say so much.
N EY being given the okay to buy alitalia means that meridiana will prob get same approvals.
I believe perhaps we might be missing something here but in our perspective Qatar is playing in two fields, I guess. For start, IG uses Avios as their FFP currency which tells us that they might join IAG (or even OW in the future). This is huge for Qatar since they are BA's new allies in OW (after the termination of the JSA between BA/Qantas) and it will put them a stronger position within the alliance. On the other hand, Qatar isn't looking at the airline per se, but to all the leisure market opportunities this stake may bring for them. In fact, IG flies to a lot of European destinations (Greek and Spanish Islands, for instance). So, if Qatar buys this stake, they will be able to reach numerous small markets in Europe. That's why this might be a smart move in the future for them.
Finally, the reviews and customer feedback we have at Travel Consulting Hub with this airline aren't by all means negative... but it all depends which airline you're comparing IG against...
flyingfish already got it.. it's all about rights to/from Italy, to JFK and between Italy and JFK!!!
The general stereotype is that Arabs are long on money and short on brains, but nothing could be further from the truth. Historically, Arabs are traders by nature and quite shrewd. In addition, their loads of money buys the best consulting in the financial world. The result is some pretty creative deals like this one. Trust me, they wouldn't be "throwing" money at an ailing airline unless they got something substantial in return. The key -- and what many people forget -- is that those returns aren't always cash; they can be politics, slots, gates, clout, etc..
This is just one component of a much wider Qatari investment in Sardinia, for which Meridiana is the primary carrier. In their various guises they have bought up hotels, property developments, golf courses, etc over the last few years and are planning on developing several more.
Thsi seems to be getting quite common, with Turkish seemingly interested to buy Air Malta as well.
With all the Middle east investment in Sardinia, this is a very smart and strategic move.
But if you've never been to Sardinia or know about that you'd probably question it as well.
There isn't much American Tourism, and I am fine with keeping it my secret.
Major Quartar clients want to go there and they need to have a footprint. So why not buy something already running.
It's not a bad airline. But typically we fly Air Berlin or BA to get to Olbia.
But we flew it some years back and had no complaints.
“monkey see, monkey do.”
Smacks a bit racist.
(Out and Proud German-Aryan categorizing Arabs).