Could Aer Lingus and United Airlines finally be ending their (at this point) very strange partnership?
In this post:
Aer Lingus & United scaling back partnership
In a regulatory filing, Aer Lingus and United have revealed that they will be terminating their codeshare agreement as of October 27, 2023. The airlines have had this partnership dating as far back as 2008, so this is a 15-year agreement that’s coming to an end.
With a codeshare agreement, the two airlines place their “codes” on select flights of the other airline, allowing the other airline to market those flights. This is generally intended as a strategic play when airlines see value in working together.
As of now, Aer Lingus AerClub and United MileagePlus still have a partnership, allowing reciprocal points earning and redemption opportunities. There has been no official announcement about frequent flyer reciprocity ending, though I have to imagine that’s coming shortly. That’s because this partnership has made zero sense to me in recent years…
Will Aer Lingus & American finally properly partner?
The reason it’s surprising that Aer Lingus and United have continued to have a partnership is because of changes to Aer Lingus’ business model in recent years:
- Aer Lingus is owned by IAG, the same parent company as British Airways and Iberia
- In late 2020, Aer Lingus joined the oneworld transatlantic joint venture, whereby the airline can coordinate its schedules and fares with American, British Airways, Finnair, and Iberia; this even means that the airlines share revenue across the Atlantic
- In early 2022, Aer Lingus and American revealed that they would launch a partnership, including the introduction of codeshare flights
What’s bizarre is that even though American and Aer Lingus split revenue across the Atlantic and are able to coordinate schedules and fares, they have no frequent flyer reciprocity. You can’t earn or redeem American AAdvantage miles for travel on Aer Lingus, and can’t take advantage of any reciprocal elite perks. This completely counters the point of a joint venture, which is to create as much metal neutrality as possible.
Let me take it a step further — can anyone think of any other airlines that participate in the same joint venture, yet don’t offer frequent flyer reciprocity? I can’t…
I have to imagine that the play here is that we’ll soon see Aer Lingus fully cut ties with United, and then introduce reciprocal opportunities with American. The only question is why this hasn’t happened so far — was there some contract between Aer Lingus and United that no party could get out of for a certain amount of time, or…?
Bottom line
Aer Lingus and United have announced that they’re terminating their codeshare agreement in the coming days. This agreement has been in place for 15 years, and while it made sense at first, it has been very strange in light of recent circumstances.
Aer Lingus now belongs to the oneworld transatlantic joint venture, including having a codeshare agreement with American. Despite that, the airline offers no frequent flyer reciprocity with American.
I suspect that Aer Lingus’ partnership with United will fully end soon, and we’ll see improved perks between Aer Lingus and American. I also can’t help but wonder if we’ll finally see Aer Lingus rejoin oneworld (though this is a rumor that has existed for a very long time).
What do you make of Aer Lingus and United terminating their codeshare agreement?
Time for Aer Lingus to Join ONEWORLD and be a full partner in the TA Joint Business effort. Develop Dublin as a full Connection Center for increased travel options.
Gawd. PLEASE rejoin OneWorld. I literally ONLY fly OW airlines. Even if it adds stops or increases pricing. Earning those miles/status and getting full reciprocal benefits is very important to me as a heavy traveler.
Okay is SFO to Dublin finally happening then or LAX to Dublin? United could clearly do those routes in the summer.
UAL is on quite a "cancellation roll" ? Didn't they just do the same thing to LOT ?
That makes sense. American is a more logical partner for Aer Lingus than United. I don’t know why Aer Lingus hasn’t returned to Oneworld though.
In the same vein, why do Oneworld passengers get no credit or benefits when flying Vueling? Since Vueling has all but taken over Europe from Iberia in Barcelona, it makes Barcelona a hard to reach city unless transiting via Madrid, not mentioning that the MAD-BCN-MAD "Puente Aereo" is under attack both by High Speed Trains and Greta Thurnberg's pals. Expect it to be substantially downsized, like Paris-Lyon and Bordeaux with Air France, or, as they...
In the same vein, why do Oneworld passengers get no credit or benefits when flying Vueling? Since Vueling has all but taken over Europe from Iberia in Barcelona, it makes Barcelona a hard to reach city unless transiting via Madrid, not mentioning that the MAD-BCN-MAD "Puente Aereo" is under attack both by High Speed Trains and Greta Thurnberg's pals. Expect it to be substantially downsized, like Paris-Lyon and Bordeaux with Air France, or, as they now call themselves, AIRFRANCE.
Air France at least does a much better job of serving their country outside their hub cities than cough cough Lufthansa.
Because Vueling is a budget airline that isn't in OneWorld. Just like you don't get OneWorld benefits flying Jetstar or Zipair, or Star Alliance benefits flying Scoot
The lack of credits/benefits given to you doesn't prevent you from flying them. You may not want to fly them without it, but saying it makes Barcelona "hard to reach" seems a bit of a stretch!
I don't understand aer lingus not opening philadelphia Shannon route. Shannon such a pleasure to fly through. Less then an hour from galway. I also see a demand for this route.
I hope this indicates two things. 1) SFO-DUB returns. That route I think could be a J only plane and it would fill up these days. 2)EI really joins OW in a more earnest way and you can get some reciprocal perks for having AA status.
Scott Kirby will be expanding UAL’s Atlantic and Pacific footprint with 110 787s on order. Look for United to expand its flying to steal Aer Lingus’s market share.
While the JV component is unique in having a codeshare w/ a direct competitor to the JV, there are other notable exceptions to "codesharing w/ the enemy." Latam has codeshare partnerships outside of Skyteam and even outside of DL equity companies; they just announced increased codesharing w/ the LH Group even though DL owns equity in both Air France/KLM and Virgin Atlantic as well as Latam.
Latam is clearly trying to partner w/ as...
While the JV component is unique in having a codeshare w/ a direct competitor to the JV, there are other notable exceptions to "codesharing w/ the enemy." Latam has codeshare partnerships outside of Skyteam and even outside of DL equity companies; they just announced increased codesharing w/ the LH Group even though DL owns equity in both Air France/KLM and Virgin Atlantic as well as Latam.
Latam is clearly trying to partner w/ as many carriers as possible to keep that traffic out of Gol's hands and that strategy might be somewhat relevant to EI - but it does help UA at the expense of AA which highlights the discussion earlier this week about why AA underperforms DL and UA; while not a major factor, it is real.
Many of these commercial agreements likely were signed years ago and have long contract terms; ironically, JVs have regular timelines for being assessed, at least by the governments.
It is also possible that EI and IAG are afraid of the dominance they would have over the Ireland-UK market and have allowed the UA-EI relationship to continue longer than necessary since UA is the only one of the big 3 US carriers that does not have a JV partner in the UK.
"Latam has codeshare partnerships outside of Skyteam and even outside of DL equity companies" - LATAM is not a member of Skyteam. DL is only a 10% shareholder, and so does QR have a 10% stake in LATAM. LATAM even has 10 oneworld FF partners vs 3 SkyTeam partners.
"Latam is clearly trying to partner w/ as many carriers as possible to keep that traffic out of Gol's hands" - that may be partially true,...
"Latam has codeshare partnerships outside of Skyteam and even outside of DL equity companies" - LATAM is not a member of Skyteam. DL is only a 10% shareholder, and so does QR have a 10% stake in LATAM. LATAM even has 10 oneworld FF partners vs 3 SkyTeam partners.
"Latam is clearly trying to partner w/ as many carriers as possible to keep that traffic out of Gol's hands" - that may be partially true, but the main thing is they have no idea what they are doing, just like all of DL's core partners who keep going bankrupt every couple of years and getting money thrown at, just because without them, Delta would become irrelevant in the most important markets in the world. On the verge of bankruptcy, they accepted DL's money and gave up AA. Now they are trying to hold on to IB, because becoming irrelevant in both MIA and MAD will be a suicide pill for them. Don't worry, they are almost there :)
I live in Cork and to visit family in the US we would fly Cork-Heathrow on Aer Lingus to connect onwards with United to Washington-Dulles. This airline split does not sound, personally, good for me as American Airlines has no Dulles service from Heathrow. Sounds like my trips will become more expensive. Not everyone in Ireland lives in Dublin.
BA, which also partners with EI, has LHR-IAD.
There goes any chances of Aer Lingus flying to DEN.
Ummmm
They already announced flying to denver…?
It starts in may 2024
LOL Manny, do You read the news? Or this blog?
To me the agreement made total sense when it was first out in place. Aer Lingus left OW in 2007 to become a point to point carrier only to realise it couldn’t compete with Ryanair. So then it started looking for ways to return to legacy status. This United partnership was it, without having to the OW partners it left behind!
Finally!! Hello BDL!
Wonder if EI will also cut ties with AC. Seems pretty likely at this point...
For a while Aer Lingus flew MAD-IAD on behalf on United. That was an oddball route.
Please keep us updated. I'm flying Aer Lingus in January and have it credited to my United MileagePlus account, since crediting to American wasn't an option.
Jim. I HIGHLY doubt anything will change that quickly. But good luck!
I totally agree with you. It’s even more odd with their sister companies BA and IB (all three belong to IAG), where you can earn Avios when flying EI, but other than that enjoy no benefits.
I agree that it's odd, but back when they first left OW it was stated they were trying to become point to point. IAG also has LEVEL/Vueling and about to add Air Europa and I haven't heard of them joining OW. I do wish that ALL of them would join and show them rest of the alliances just how big OW/IAG really are in Western Europe.
Sure, but Vueling/Level are a point-to-point LCC concept and not part of the Joint-Venture (JV). For instance, they do not offer J. Meanwhile EI is providing similar services like BA/IB and - in my view most importantly - is part of the JV.
As far as UX is concerned, there is still no green light by anti-trust authorities. Certainly joining (or not) the JV is something to be considered by the authorities. To a lesser degree also alliance membership.