EoW November 2009

Transat lant ic Cable

Cleveland-region travellers on global itineraries will, of course, enjoy readier access to destinations worldwide; and the city and its environs will be more accessible to visitors from overseas as sister airlines connect them to the Continental network. But the presence of Chicago-based United Airlines in the Star Alliance line-up suggests a potential drawback of these compacts: two of the partners have overlapping routes, with an implied threat of reduced competition and service cutbacks on those routes. Continental spokesman David Messing assured the Plain Dealer that United’s Chicago hub posed no danger of that kind. His airline’s goal in joining Star, he said, is to increase volume on the network, which should result in more traffic to all hubs. Given the impact on major carriers, Continental among them, from the downturn in air travel, this would be a welcome development. But how realistic are such hopes? On 1 st September Continental, the fourth largest airline in the US as calculated by revenue passenger miles, estimated that its August traffic slid 3.9% on a 6% reduction in seat capacity, compared with August 2008. And United’s mainline capacity was down 8.9% in August from a month earlier. In contrast, according to Dow Jones Newswires , such low-cost carriers as US Airways said their business was improving.

The Texas-based airline announced its move on 27 th October to the Star Alliance, a transition meant to enable the carrier to broaden the options available to its passengers. With 21 new partners, including such majors as Scandinavian Airlines and Germany’s Lufthansa, Continental would seem able to deliver on its intention. Reporter Alison Grant of the Cleveland Plain Dealer noted the main benefit offered by airline alliances, those networks of connectivity and convenience. International passengers may accrue and consolidate frequent-flyer miles and redeem them with any carrier within the network. Member airlines, meanwhile, are able to extend their reach by routing “shared” passengers among the partners. (“Continental Airlines Switching to New Alliance of Carriers,” 18 th August) With Continental in the network, travellers on Star Alliance affiliates will gain a convenient point of departure to Europe via Continental’s hub in Newark (New Jersey), and to Latin America from the Continental hub in Houston. From a local perspective, Ms Grant wished to know what the Star Alliance connection portended for passengers using the airline’s hub in Cleveland.

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EuroWire – November 2009