Global aviation in Europe is very much controlled by the big three European airline groups Air France-KLM, IAG, and Lufthansa Group. These airline groups often try to buy up independent airlines, both to further their strategic interests and to prevent competitors from doing the same.
Continue reading: Major: Turkish Airlines Investing In Air Europa, In Wild Card Deal
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@Lucky, can you cover the story that a plane took off for the first time in 2 years from Khartoum. Fascinated to know more, but can’t find anything online minus a video with a brief story saying it was carrying civilians on the generals plane. Or do you know anything?
@Ben
I believe IAG purchased their 20% stake for €200 Million valuing the airline at about €1bn at the time. Defo not €100m.
Having one single airline with 2 hubs one in MAD and one in IST makes a lot of sense.
IST is Eastern focused and MAD is west focused. TK will have some long legged birds in the future that can help prevent 2-stop itineraries.
Think UX operating it's Latin America network augmented with flights from US East coast hubs to Europe/North Africa medium haul + couple of ULHs to China and Japan (think japanese diaspora in Sao Paulo and Equator and China-Latin America trade).
Meanwhile TK focuses on linking premium North American destinations + Europe and Africa to Asia + Oceania.
The minority stakes does not make a lot of sense. But operating a single airline with 2 well placed long haul hubs that can reach anywhere in the world + tons of short haul traffic in between makes a bunch of sense !
Good point re EU airline cannot be majority-owned by non-EU company.
I wonder if Turkish will leave Star and join SkyTeam. Does TK even codeshare with any of the other Star airlines in Europe?
This move would make no sense, as UX-TK, LH-OS-AZ-LX-SN all compete in the same market. At least TK had some MENA influence, but UX has none of that. Additionally, LH and TK don't really synergize as partners. I can see TK-UX moving to SkyTeam, or even OneWorld as UX-IB may be more aligned, along with QR-TK-WY with IAG in play (as it has influence with UX, IB, and QR now). If SkyTeam, Delta would finally have a quasi-Middle Eastern partner to expand connections into India/South Asia, as Riyadh Air won't do that for at least another 5 years, and who knows when the IndiGo thing will start (plus that only limits Delta to India, and neither neighboring country).
Lesson learned.
Major : gets less than 10 comments.
Tim Dunn: easily 100+ comments.
I don't think Qatar Airways would like a major competitor like Turkish join Oneworld. For me, Skyteam just fits them perfectly. It would compliment Saudia pretty well for Middle Estern connection. IndiGo's existing cooperation with most Skyteam members would make for a huge boost.
Agree, TK moving to SkyTeam would make more sense, since they don't have any presence in MENA. I don't see them moving to OW though, given QR/WY/RJ/AT already are covering well the MENA region and antitrust consideration in Spain is also speaking against it.
In StarAlliance, TK is really an enemy of LH group, so I don't see any advantage of staying ... other than the fun of poking LH ...
"SkyTeam would make more sense, since they don't have any presence in MENA"
Wait, what?
Since when are Lebanon (MEA) and Saudi Arabia (Saudia) not in the Middle East?
It seems like Air Europa zeroed out partner award inventory early last year and has never added any back. I wonder whether this will open up some new award options via Miles and Smiles. Not holding my breath, though.
Neither of them are major. Saudia works for Europe and NA to Middle East but has limited presence in the Subcontinent (worse than KLM) and isn't connected properly with the US domestic network. MEA doesn't even have a presence in NA, nor the subcontinent. Those are two major long-haul markets that SkyTeam isn't able to connect with the Middle East in play.
Let me give you an example.
I can fly from AUS-MAA (Chennai, India - 6th most populous city in India) through:
OneWorld - AUS-LHR-MAA, AUS-AA/AS hub-DOH-MAA, AUS-AA/AS hub-HKG-MAA, AUS-JFK-DEL (and connect on IndiGo to MAA via AA booking channel), etc.
Star - AUS-FRA-MAA, AUS-EWR-DXB (UA) - MAA (EK), AUS-JFK/EWR/SFO/ORD-DEL/BLR/BOM-MAA, AUS-EWR-ADD-MAA, etc.
SkyTeam - AUS-AMS-DEL/BLR/BOM/AMS-MAA, AUS-DL hub-CDG/LHR-DEL/BLR/BOM-MAA (end of list).
The advantage of a Middle East hub is the ability to launch short/medium-haul flights to major Indian cities like MAA, HYD, TRV, ATQ, PNQ, so on, that are not fuel intensive and can launch demand to the ME, Europe, and NA simultaneously. TK is well positioned for that if they can align their aircraft properly, while MEA and Saudia are not in a position for that.