While this was rumored as far back as 2018, it seems that discussions are once again taking place over the prospect of China Southern joining the oneworld alliance.
Continue reading: China Southern In Discussions To Join Oneworld
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
A simple alliance relationship won't change anything without a joint venture and the US only allows JVs with countries that have Open Skies. Neither HKG or China (which have separate air service treaties with the US) are not going to agree to Open Skies.
Joint ventures are of the most benefit to airlines that are willingt o serve entire regions which Japan and S. Korea do for E. Asia - and those countries have Open Skies with the US, allowing AA, DL and UA to have JV partnerships where the most traffic can be connected.
China and HKG competed for connecting traffic from the US to outside China before covid but the A350 and B787 make it possible to fly the entire Pacific Rim - and less advantageous to connect traffic over a JV if it can be flown nonstop. Seoul and Tokyo both have far greater connecting potential than Chinese airports to non-Chinese destinations.
A mainland Chinese airline in the oneworld alliance could be a big rescue for Finnair (and Helsinki airport) in the current state of things, assuming that China ever reopens from the pandemic.
They could use Helsinki as a focus city in Europe and partner with Finnair for the connecting traffic. Helsinki airport is already built with this kind of operations in mind, but Finnair cannot fly over Russia, whereas Chinese airlines can.
Finnair will still have to cut down on its long-haul equipment, given that the relations with Russia won't be getting better anytime soon.
Ultimately Cathay will do whatever they’re told to do by the Chinese government, because if they don’t, they’ll be ruined
A truly awful carrier. Customer services is a disaster with no idea, in addition to poor inflight service and smoking crew .
A few years back I was delayed on a domestic from Chengdu due to an issue closing the cargo door, with a connection on the same ticket.
They kept insisting they weren’t responsible to rebook as it was a delta ticket.
I explained it was their delay and they were adamant which resulted in me missing two options to Paris and Amsterdam.
In the end a very nice Air France manager took control and rebooked me the next day. I wrote to China southern to claim overnight costs and they refused saying it wasn’t their responsibility.
It seems this was a regular issue not exceptional.
I also believe they were asked not to extend their SkyTeam contract.
This is probably quite an outdated view given Royal Air Maroc is now a member, but Oneworld has always been a more premium alliance than Star or Sky.
All the mainland Chinese airlines are horrible and don't have the premium reputation that most Oneworld member airlines do. I've always thought that as much as Oneworld would love more members, they only want premium ones and a mainland Chinese carrier is unlikely to fit the brief (whereas Cathay does perfectly).
This is great news! I do hope that CS makes their planes/service more Premium though, OW is a premium brand.
It’s almost impossible for an airline with more than 600 aircrafts to become “one world connect” under any circumstances. That’s 2/3 of AA and larger than BA+IB+QR combined. Either fully in or remain status quo. One world connect is for niche players
YES! And also Starlux of Taiwan. Then we need a Central/Eastern European airline and a Central/South American Airline.
@John T
Star Alliance and OneWorld are broadly the same in terms of 'premium' members. There's no way OW outweighs Star in the premium stakes. I've flown business class in all Star airlines and all but two from OW. I would not favour OW over Star, or vice versa. But I would say that SkyTeam (with a few honorable exceptions) is indeed the horrible leftovers alliance.
Air Serbia could be a good option for the Balkans, while American could buy stakes in Gol and integrate it into Oneworld
Doubt Starlux could be incorporated into Oneworld, given Cathay is likely to veto them, as would China Southern if they join
Believe it or not, there are actually passengers that want to fly other places than the US. A truly shocking thought for some of the more small minded US citizens, I know...
Meh, they could always take the USA-Japan route, and produce a bilateral a cacophony of restrictions+limitations while hilariously still calling it "open skies," thus allowing further competition.
That, and don't know why you're including HKG with the domestic PRC airports in regard to int'l connections, particularly relative to ICN/TYO, considering that it was a significantly busier international connector (and better geographically positioned for it, for N.American originating traffic) than either of them, prior to the pandemic.
If China Southern does join oneworld, will there even be relationship with CX? Remember, CX has cross-ownership with Air China. I remember watching an interview years ago, a former CX CEO wanted to court China Eastern at the time.
CX has ALREADY been ruined by China and its plague pestilence imposed on the world. Cathay is now 10%, maybe 20, of its former self. Of course the only decent "Chinese" airline was Cathay, especially after the inclusion of Dragonair and after China's heavy-handed and illegal-per-all-treaties conquest and submission of Hong Kong which is now a shadow of what it one time was under Britain's benevolent and free-reigning tutelage.
Yes, they will do as they are told, possibly even becoming a merged airline with China Southern, who knows ?
The right thing to do, but it won't happen, would be to slam the door shut at any attempt by a Chinese Airline (except of course China Airlines) to join any alliance, but since was not done for Saudia (another justifiable pariah) by Skyteam, I do not see it happening in this instance.
2 more things you forgot to mention in this article:
1. China Southern owns 55% of Xiamen Airlines, a Skyteam member. Will Xiamen Airlines also leave Skyteam if China Southern joins Oneworld? It will shift the dynamics in Greater China, as Skyteam so far has the strongest presence in the region.
2. Less than 50 miles from HKG lies SZX, where Star Alliance member Shenzhen Airlines is based at. If Cathay Pacific wants to join Star Alliance, it will also compete with Shenzhen Airlines and the TPE-based EVA Air. Though in the case of Shenzhen Airlines, its mother company Air China might just keep it regional so that Cathay could face less competition and bring more synergy to Star Alliance.
I doubt Starlux could survive in the long term. Taiwan is too small of an aviation market. Even South Korea has problem keeping 2 full-service airlines, so I don't see Starlux can survive without one of the Big 2 in Taiwan collapse.
They are probably the more premium one among the Big 3 Chinese Airlines. Though I'd say Xiamen Airlines (which ironically is 55% hold by CZ) offers the best overall product among Chinese carriers.
Cathay had been going downhill for years even during the pre-pandemic era. The catering in business and economy class had been meager and many mainland Chinese passengers had reported discriminatory attitudes from Cathay cabin crew towards Mandarin-speaking passengers regardless of cabins.
One of the major reasons I guess was probably due to its major oil hedge loss in the mid-2010s, which forced it to cut many costs that once made it a premium airline.
CX would definitely not be wanting this and considering the shenanigans in HKG by the new government I doubt this will happen
I thought Shenzhen Airlines was going beyond regional. They fly to London from Shenzhen on the 330. This did not happen before Air China took over Shenzhen Airlines.
Tom,
I have no idea where you came up with the idea to support what you just said - but it surely wasn't in my post.
ConcordeBoy,
Concorde Boy,
it is hard to believe that anyone would believe that any city in China is geographically superior as a connecting hub from N. America to East Asia; Japan is clearly the best positioned country geographically followed by S. Korea (N. Korea would work if it weren't for politics). THEN some of the cities of NE China would be in line.
And, no, HKG did not carry more international connecting traffic than ICN or both Tokyo airports.
I think this is beneficial for all parties except CX, for members, regardless of whether you are a member of AS and AA, now you can redeem all your miles with CZ, and considering how generous CZ is with award redemption, it will absorb the vast surplus in miles generated in AA and AS from CC and miles sales.
CZ also operate a long-haul base in SZX, PKX and SHE as well as a small international base at both SYX and HAK. MF will join Oneworld likely, as their other stockholders are mainly composed of local governments, which doesn't care which alliance the airline is in as long as all of the metrics met expectation.
Chinese airline and Chinese all like direct, non-stop flight to their destination, they like to avoid stopping at all cost.
Keep in mind that DOT hasn't used any of their CAN destinated slots yet based on the US-China Air Agreement, while CZ used all of their assigned CAN-based slots to the extent that they are flying CAN-CSX-LAX and CAN-WUH-SFO just to use Zone 2 slots instead of the limited Zone 1 slots. If CZ joins OW, likely AA can operate ORD-CAN/LAX-CAN to relieve/free up some CZ slots.
People here seem to forget the fact that the largest shareholder is Swire Pacific and that Qatar Airways has an almost 10% share in CX, no way QR will allow CX to leave for *A unless communist China asks for it.
I agree that China Southern was one of the better choices when travelling to/in China was still possible. I flew them quite often on short-/mid-haul routes and rather enjoyed it.
Now, I think the entire discussion is sort of obsolete, because China is closed and will most likely stay so. This also reduces the potential benefits of joining a global alliance to virtually zero.
The Cathay leaving OW to join *A never seemed like a plausible scenario to me. Why would Cathay leave an alliance where they have veto power, just to join another alliance where they have Shenzhen Airlines, EVA, Air China, ANA, Singapore Air, Thai Airways all fighting for regional and international connections?
Your comments are as usual from the American or western point of view. Many Chinese make up a lot of customers for the alliances and it depends where you are based as to the carrier or alliance you will focus on. Anyway, I think CZ is in the worst position here because they basically now are not with an alliance. They are no longer part of Skyteam but are not part of OneWorld either and many Chinese think they will become part of OneWorld but they do have OneWorld code-share flights. Further, if they join OneWorld it will make a huge OneWorld cluster for the south of China. On the other hand there are many smaller carriers in China that either a) don't have any partners and just several flights and service smaller destinations or b) are invested by or a subsidiary of a major carrier (it could be to the extent or running operations together (e.g. Shanghai Airlines and China Eastern or Shenzhen Airlines and Air China)).
China Southern have long-haul base in URC,SHE,WUH,PKX etc along. Yes, China southern have a large share of it's business located in Southern China, but it's the largest carrier in Asia, with more then a dozen of base domestically throughout, from HRB to SYX, from URC,SHA, all throughout china.
Cathay Pacific is not as strong neither politically nor financially as they once were and Qatar Airways own a big share of the Airline so it is not all in their hand