Southwest Airlines is currently undergoing a major transformation, which includes charging for checked bags, introducing assigned and extra legroom seating, etc. It goes beyond that, though, as Southwest is also increasingly launching airline partnerships.
Continue reading: Southwest Airlines & China Airlines Unveil Partnership: Big Deal?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
This likely won't impact China Airlines' future with Skyteam.
Keep in mind that Korean Air has existing partnerships with Alaska and American Airlines despite having closer ties to Delta.
Similarly, British Airways, despite being inseparable with American Airlines, still has an existing partnership with their rival Jetblue. And of course, there's Turkish Airlines partnering with IndiGo despite sharing the same alliance with Air India.
At the end of the day, this is just business. Despite being from different alliances, airlines still need more connectivity for passengers, and giving passengers more options is a necessity.
Make sit possible? 🙂
Might want to ask ChatGPT if there are any typos before publishing
I guess it's inevitable that China Airlines would look for a better US partner given its poor to nonexistent relationship with Delta. Delta pulled out of Taiwan -- even closing a sales office -- years ago as it pivoted to working with communist state-owned China Eastern. Instead of enhancing its nominal Sky Team relationship with China Airlines, Delta has returned to Taiwan with its own flight from Seattle that's been a disaster.
This is also another example of why Southwest should have introduced first-class or business-class -- even if was just a European-style blocked middle seat. Add a meal service and enhance the drink offerings. A premium experience should be able to fill three or four rows at the front of the plane. It would also allow for connecting business-class passengers to have an elevated experience on Southwest.
Considering how much Delta hates their supposed Taiwanese Skyteam "partner," it makes sense for China Airlines to look elsewhere for feed.
@FNT, It would be awesome if Southwest was able to actually serve meals, but there galleys would need a massive overhaul, and the issue is, that is something that would be hard to do on a subset of there fleet given there network layout and P2P strategy.
I do hope that 5-10 years down the road, they are able to a real business class and able to serve meals. But I am not counting on it. Elliot will pull out and leave them in a bad financial situation most likely.
Mini airlines have relationships with other carriers outside of their alliance, but the largest Taiwanese market longhaul is to the US, which means having to work with Delta. It is simply a matter of Delta choosing to work with Korean rather than any other partner in Northeast Asia.
And remember that it was actually China Airlines that jumped into the Seattle market after Delta announced it
Fluffy Tim.
Taiwanese are not happy with Delta's involvement with China Eastern. Korean was blackmailed to partner with Delta because they realized ICN is easier to deal with than PVG.
Back then, MU was the way.
Korean is a charter member of SkyTeam. KE just realized they needed a partner and AA and UA are committed to Japanese partners.
AA and DL both have equity stakes in mainland Chinese airlines.
Taiwan is caught not just in geopolitics but also by geography. Taiwan is too close to Japan and S. Korea for there to be a competing hub.
Taiwan also has 3 global carriers - intense competition for a country (or whatever you want to call it) of that size.
CI is basically turning to the US low cost sector for a partner- which is a big deal
"Instead of enhancing its nominal Sky Team relationship with China Airlines, Delta has returned to Taiwan with its own flight from Seattle that's been a disaster"
What are you talking about?
China Airlines didn't exist on the Seattle route when DL launched their service (and also announced 4 months after Delta did). Also, you have no clue how that route is or is not performing for them, you're just making assumptions based on publicized fares, which don't paint a whole picture.
I wonder how much of Southwest's loyal customer base flies internationally and would fly to Asian destinations....
@ToTo I think you do have a point when you say this is just business. CI also has an agreement with JetBlue. DL was probably not happy that CI added service to Seattle but DL is a bully anyway especially since Bastian took over the helm at the airline. Though, it is funny to see that they may not have the best of relationships but sometimes they still need to work together such as CI providing ground services for DL at Taoyuan airport.
If Alaska can interline with EVA, I don't see the reason why this agreement would not work for China Airlines and Southwest. I bet it's to enable economy passengers from/to Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, and so on, to reach secondary and tertiary US destinations on the same ticket. Lack of a domestic F should not be a deterrent
How will a normal interline agreement work when Southwest do not participate in GDS? I guess it will only be bookable on China Airlines website?
I don't know how much correlation there is between airfares and how a route performs. I watch the DL SEA-TPE route closely for various trips, such as last month, I used it for positioning to Asia for a snorkeling trip in the Ryukus. Since it launched, it has consistently been significantly lower price (cash or miles), from far advanced purchase to day of departure travel, across all cabins, of any DL TPAC flying. Lots of empty seat,s though lately economy fills up last minute compared to last year. The purser on one recent flight commented to me that despite appearances in the passenger cabin, DL is upgauging it because the cargo is making so much money that 'it doesn't matter if they sell any seats'.
The flight timings, recently adjusted, are now even worse for attempting any same-day Asia connections going either way. Even if DL were of a mind to cooperate with its supposed partners, and if DL had its website working to some base level accordingly, the schedule is awful for the demand to the Philippines, Vietnam, etc that the three Taiwanese carriers heavily serve from SEA (as well as JAL via NRT).
Yeah, last month, and I as a DL 2MM and DM should be getting on the higher end of DL theoretical service levels, IRROPs on DL SEA-TPE took many and difficult calls before getting an agent that would rebook me that night on CI instead 24 hours later on DL. Some were the increasingly high number of untrained agents ('we can't rebook an award ticket') and the rest was DL making extreme efforts to block CI flights from its systems.