Hi there,
With the collapse of AirBerlin, OneWorld will return to having a gap in Central Europe; London, Madrid, and Dublin more than adequately cover the Western half of Europe, but has only Finnair and S7 to cover everything on the Central and Eastern half of the continent. Helsinki's geography leaves much to be desired, and S7's Moscow operations generally cover a limited niche.
Given all this, will we see OneWorld make a concerted effort to snag a significant addition to round out coverage in Europe? As for options:
-LOT has supposedly been less than happy with it's position in Star vis a vis the Lufthansa colossus, and their growing Warsaw hub would complement the BA reasonably well, and fill out missing gaps in Eastern Europe that can't be served profitably from London (examples: Minsk, Yerevan, and Tbilisi). It could be a win/win for both entities.
-SAS is also outside of the big UA/AC/LH joint venture, and Copenhagen is also a reasonably good fit as a Central European hub as OW is going to get at this stage and offers significant connectivity to North America and Asia from Central and Eastern Europe (although Finnair covers Asia well).
-CSA is outside of the big DL/KL/AF/VS JV and Prague would offer the best location for a niche Central European hub outside of Germany. BA's LHR services would fill a big hole for them on the LHR-PRG route, and AA will be flying PHL-PRG soon as a transatlantic link.
-OneWorld could also try to pick up a few smaller niche players like Adria, Aegean, Croatia, Bulgaria Air, or Tarom and go from there.
-BA/IAG could try to build out their own operation ala Deutsche BA in BER (when it's finished), but my guess is that this is less likely than trying to woo another carrier to within the OW fold. LH Group seems to be moving quickly to fill the gap anyways.
Also you can check this infographic video
With the collapse of AirBerlin, OneWorld will return to having a gap in Central Europe; London, Madrid, and Dublin more than adequately cover the Western half of Europe, but has only Finnair and S7 to cover everything on the Central and Eastern half of the continent. Helsinki's geography leaves much to be desired, and S7's Moscow operations generally cover a limited niche.
Given all this, will we see OneWorld make a concerted effort to snag a significant addition to round out coverage in Europe? As for options:
-LOT has supposedly been less than happy with it's position in Star vis a vis the Lufthansa colossus, and their growing Warsaw hub would complement the BA reasonably well, and fill out missing gaps in Eastern Europe that can't be served profitably from London (examples: Minsk, Yerevan, and Tbilisi). It could be a win/win for both entities.
-SAS is also outside of the big UA/AC/LH joint venture, and Copenhagen is also a reasonably good fit as a Central European hub as OW is going to get at this stage and offers significant connectivity to North America and Asia from Central and Eastern Europe (although Finnair covers Asia well).
-CSA is outside of the big DL/KL/AF/VS JV and Prague would offer the best location for a niche Central European hub outside of Germany. BA's LHR services would fill a big hole for them on the LHR-PRG route, and AA will be flying PHL-PRG soon as a transatlantic link.
-OneWorld could also try to pick up a few smaller niche players like Adria, Aegean, Croatia, Bulgaria Air, or Tarom and go from there.
-BA/IAG could try to build out their own operation ala Deutsche BA in BER (when it's finished), but my guess is that this is less likely than trying to woo another carrier to within the OW fold. LH Group seems to be moving quickly to fill the gap anyways.
Also you can check this infographic video
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