Alitalia prompts scramble at Heathrow

[AASuper80Fan]

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle2456482.ece I could see BA, VA, BMI, DL, CO, AA, UA, or anyone that serves LHR fight hard for the

[z740]

Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight!!!! i can only imagine what is gonna come out of this. i think BA will get most of the slots folowed by Virgin and then Delta. after that who knows.

-Chris

[ptbodale]

There are a lot of other airlines that serve LHR already in line for the slots before CO and DL.

[DAL767-400ER]

There are a lot of other airlines that serve LHR already in line for the slots before CO and DL.

In the end it will all come down on the price. Besides, if fellow Skyteam carriers CO/NW/DL were to offer AZ something like code-/revenue-sharing, who knows, anything can happen.

[DTVAirport]

It's whoever buys the slots from Alitalia isn't it? Not whichever carrier is 'next in the que?'

[arifpal]

Will be some big bucks for Alitalia with so much competition, for some reason I suspect Air India having a go at it as well, especially with its recent fleet expansion!

[AA 1818]

I am surprised that no one mentioned the any of the gulf carriers...

A while back, didn't BMI/Qatar (or was it someone else?) try to circumvent the rule by claiming the flight (IIRC - was supposedly Doha-London-Doha on QR's metal with a QR crew) was a codeshare with BMI, further claiming that BMI would wet-lease the aircraft/crew?

I could see any of the Gulf Carriers attempting to take the routes, and seeing how much financial backing they are able to muster, they would get the first dibs. Apart from that, I could see BA getting some for sure. I hope tha AA gets some, so that they could better serve LHR, but then again - other airlines could do very well with the allotments - such as DL.

As for AirIndia, I wish that they are able to get more routes. I can see that other Indian airlines are willing to battle it out as well. As for JetAirways, they could do well with more frequencies. Apart from that, Kingfisher could logically try to take on some new routes as well...

[arifpal]

I guess middle-east/India makes more sense. I doubt if AA (which always looks like in a state of bankruptcy from their service) would be able to match the $ the middle east can offer.