What looked like a win for Delta… isn’t. I recently wrote about how Delta was trying to get a larger presence at Tokyo/Haneda by partnering with Skymark. ANA has won that battles, however, so Delta is going home empty-handed. ANA apparently had many of Skymark’s smaller creditors locked up because they already did business with ANA. But if the rumors are true, then ANA has made a deal with the devil to get Airbus in its court. It is said to be taking some of Skymark’s A380s.
Are the creditors doing the right thing? Is ANA doing the right thing? Would Delta have been a better partner?
12 comments on “Topic of the Week: Delta Loses Its Skymark Bid”
shocked that this isn’t the Topic du Jour!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2015/08/07/los-angeles-agrees-to-give-up-control-of-ontario-airport/31274233/
Whoa…that deserves its own Cranky topic…
I know, I felt guilty posting it because I know Brett will weigh in with much more detail later. But there it was, just sitting there near the top of my google news page this morning, seemingly surrounded by blinking and flashing lights and I just couldn’t help myself. Sorry Brett!
Oh don’t worry. It’s coming Monday.
I knew it would… that’s why I felt guilty! Free ONT!
Nothing like some Friday morning quarterbacking…. I know far too little about the airline business to say if this is the right or wrong move for ANA and Skymark. You do make it sound like taking on the A380 is a bad thing. While I have read that the reality of that aircraft isn’t what Airbus had hoped my guess would be that if it can work anywhere Japan would be it. Time will tell. Such an interesting business.
I don’t know about today, but back in the 1990s, Japanese airlines would fly packed high-density B747s for domestic short hops. I was amazed to see that. I don’t know if they could fill A380s though.
In Japan, people are divided into two camps- those that like to take the bullet train and those that like to fly. Particularly on the Tokyo to/from Osaka route.
Not sure who would have been the better partner, but OMG Airbus! This is what you have to resort to in order to sell those beasts? In the meantime airlines are scrambling for 787 production slots…..makes ya think
Departing contestants will receive some of the following…
Sounds like ANA grabbed Skymark just so no one else could. For workers at Skymark this could mean continued jobs with a bigger local carrier. A DL partnership would not have given them that option. Star Alliance seems to have more power over the Pacific then Skyteam or OneWorld so adding Skymark to a Star member doesn’t really improve that, so it just keeps Skyteam from having access to domestic Japan and HND.
I would think that creditors like having less competition and higher fares which lead to more profits. Consolidation worked here in the US.
Their strategy of investing in foreign ‘also rans’ didn’t work out this time…oh well. This was a long shot in the dark;an opportunity that presented itself that was worthy of exploration. At the end of the day, it would have been nice if it worked but did not bring anything substantial to the table.