Aer Lingus "leaves" One World

So Aer Lingus is leaving the One World alliance. Suprise Suprise. In my opinion this is a premptive move before explusion - the airline never attained the service levels of its peers in the Alliance especially BA, Cathay and American. And as a low cost carrier service standards have slipped to an all time low.

Yeah, this was only a matter of time. Aer Lingus don't really bring any other routes that aren't already covered quite well by British Airways, Iberia or Finnair.

The addition of Malév is an important one open up the Eastern European routes.

Why do Irish people always assume the worst when it comes to Irish companies?

From the oneworld site, and their announcment of the aer lingus withdrawl - "Aer Lingus' strategy has changed fundamentally since it joined the alliance six years ago and is no longer convergent with oneworld's. The alliance's key target market is the multi-sector, premium, frequent international traveller, while Aer Lingus has repositioned itself as a low fares point-to-point carrier."

It's a cost saving measure. How long before we see Willie Walsh withdraw BA from oneworld as well?

ronan_d_john said:

From the oneworld site, and their announcment of the aer lingus withdrawl - "Aer Lingus' strategy has changed fundamentally since it joined the alliance six years ago and is no longer convergent with oneworld's. The alliance's key target market is the multi-sector, premium, frequent international traveller, while Aer Lingus has repositioned itself as a low fares point-to-point carrier."

It's a cost saving measure. How long before we see Willie Walsh withdraw BA from oneworld as well?

Click to expand...

Exactly - Aer Lingus's current strategy is not aligned with the overall Oneworld strategy, therefore it no longer made sense for them to remain part of the alliance. Though Aer Lingus appear to have pulled out to avoid having to spend 2million updating their systems to deal with the 3 new oneworld airlines, it is arguable that eventually they would have been booted out anyway given their move away from being a full service airline, especially on the european routes.

I would say there is no prospect of BA leaving Oneworld anytime soon

Aer lingus did more for oneworld than it did for them, AL has fed passengers to both BA, Qantas and AA for years. Maybe a link up with Skyteam or Star Alliance is in the offing, seemingly they have stated that this is not the reason they are leaving. Interesting with the new Dubai flights that Emirates are also not in any major alliance either, Oz via dubai in one stop anyone?