JAL reportedly to stay with American

On the news this morning I heard that JAL has made yet another about face and will be sticking with American Airlines and the Oneworld Alliance. From the AFP:

Japan Airlines has decided to maintain its current tie-up with American Airlines and will end talks with Delta Air Lines, local media reported on Monday.

American Airlines and Delta Air Lines are competing to take a stake in JAL despite its bankruptcy filing last month with 26 billion dollars of debt — one of Japan’s biggest ever corporate failures.

Japanese media had previously said JAL planned to switch to Delta and its SkyTeam airline alliance from American Airlines’ Oneworld alliance as part of its recovery plan.

…

JAL plans to tell Delta as early as this week that it will terminate the tie-up negotiation, while together with American the Japanese airline will apply for anti-trust immunity with the US Department of Transportation within this month, the Nikkei business daily reported.

It had been previously reported that JAL had chosen Delta for a partner. Someone at the Dallas Morning News (AA’s parent company AMR is based in Ft. Worth, TX) seems to think this would make a great reality TV show.

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Contributor Bio: Steve has been splitting time between the US and Japan for the past 10 years or so and is now a post doctorate fellow at a large, lumbering University in Tokyo, where he gets paid to play with dirt.

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stylesushi

IMHO, Japan Airlines never intended to jump ship and switch
from oneWorld to Skyteam. JAL used the negotiations with
Delta Airlines as a scare tactic against American Airlines
and other oneWorld partner airlines. In the end, this tactic
worked pretty well. AA and other oneWorld partners were
basically forced into a position where they had no choice but
to help Japan Airlines.

It’s also important to point out that Delta airline has a long
history of screwing over other airlines. Example: when Pan Am
was in deep financial trouble, Delta purchased almost all the
European route system from Pan Am. Delta promissd to also
help the remaning Pan Am recover and continue as an airline
concentrating on the Pan Am Central/South American routes.
Shortly after that, Delta’s management refused to honor its
promise and come up with the money for Pan Am. Pan Am was
then forced to cease operations.

http://www.japanprobe.com steve

Good points. I think it probably boiled down to concerns about obtaining anti-trust immunity from the US gov. After buying NWA, Delta is the world’s largest carrier. So, I guess it would be more difficult for Delta/JAL to obtain immunity than AA/JAL.

One thing thing that always got me is how the J gov considered Delta to be more financially “healthy” than AA when the later made it through the aftermath of 9/11 without having to file for Chapter 11 protection but the former did not.

Perhaps in the business world, which I am admittedly not part of, a little bankruptcy here or there is no big deal, unlike in the world of personal finance.

stylesushi

I used to love Japan Airlines. My very first experience
in international first class was on JAL. I remember
the flight attendant had a real big piece of prime rib
she carved right in front of me. JAL also had an onboard
sushi chef who made the sushi onboard. (at the counter
in the middle of the 747′s first class section)

Sadly, that was only in the 1980s….
doodles

To some degree you have to remember nationalism. JAL = crowning pride of Japanese aviation, AA = America’s national airline, neither of them wanted to see these two national symbols die. I mean it is quite a joke if anyone really thought JAL would actually go with Delta. Remember, chnge that drastic, almost never happens in Japan, unless the company only could operate for another week/month at max!!!!

http://www.japanprobe.com steve

The US has no flagship carrier. It was Pan am. It is not AA.

yogaboy

So what will this spell for JAL customers in the future? Will JAL drop in terms of quality and we will start seeing dumpy and rude flight attendants, etc?

stylesushi

that had already occured even before the current
troubles at JAL.

http://www.japanprobe.com steve

Come one now, JAL’s quality of service has certainly dropped since the first time we flew them, but you can’t actually think that they’ve dropped to the same level as the average US carrier?

I fly both JAL an AA often and, comparing coach class, JAL’s cabin crew is much more polite than (and has a median age about half) that of AA’s.

AA’s business and first classes are a different story, though.

If anything, JAL’s CAs are much more polite than they were in the recent past. They have to be. They’ve been instructed to be. I get the impression that they are personally thanking you for flying JAL, given the current situation, because you are increasing the chance they will have a job in the near future.

JAL reportedly to stay with American

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