This week’s featured link:
Air France Turmoil Is Said to Spur KLM to Seek Change at Top – Bloomberg
Finally, the Dutch are revolting! Or at least, they’re starting to show their frustration with the complete and total mess that is Air France. KLM has to be regretting its decision to merge with Air France mightily, and now that anger is starting to seep out into the public eye. Thanks to Air France’s inability to handle anything well, KLM now wants increased responsibility at the group level. It turns out, Air France has given in, sort of. It has a new group CEO (former Air France), but it has now elevated the heads of Air France and KLM to both be deputy CEOs. There’s also a new non-executive chairman. This sounds like it’s temporary, so let’s hope that’s the case because this structure doesn’t sound sustainable. It’s time to put one of the Dutch people in charge.
Two for the road:
Today: WOW air Announces New Route From The U.S. To India Via Iceland – WOW Air
It’s not what I figured we’d see when WOW said it would start flying to Asia, but Delhi is a great idea. This is a good way to flow Indians over Iceland into the US for cheap. It can penetrate into a lot of secondary cities with one stop. Places like St Louis and Pittsburgh now have very good options that they didn’t have before. I wonder how the Middle East carriers feel about this.
Raytheon to conduct technology tests out of Ontario International Airport – The Press-Enterprise
Sometimes people think the best way to lower airport costs for airlines is to not spend any money. That does work, but there are other ways. Ontario is going to be the new home of Raytheon’s test plane. Forget that there’s a big Raytheon office right next to LAX. LAX just isn’t a good place to do this anymore since congestion is increasing. Ontario, meanwhile, has plenty of room for a hangar, and the rent will help offset fees that airlines have to pay.
8 comments on “3 Links I Love: The Dutch Fight Back, WOW India, Lowering Airport Costs”
As a Dutchman I am of course a believer of the saying “If it ain’t Dutch, it ain’t much”. But the Air France debacle is not going to be solved by this temporary management solution, or even by replacing the whole Air France management by KLM leadership.
The problem are the French unions and workers and no matter what the flavor of the government (right or left) or Air France leadership is, French Unions will strike at the slightest hint of change, threat or deal offered to any workers comp or benefits.
“Triste” (sad)
Sent on the go
I always thought it was a shame that BA and KLM held serious talks twice but could not make a deal. The Brits and the Dutch have more in common than the Dutch and the French. But here we are.
I wonder how Air India is doing from SFO? I guess we’ll find out out now that WOW is going to offer Dehli service.
It looks like WOW takes 9-10 hours more if you’re flying SFO-DEL so this isn’t likely to be a huge deal for Air India.
Good point. Counterpoint: Air India sucks so bad some might prefer taking the 9-10 hours longer…
I believe I mentioned the idea of WOW running flights for leisure travelers from the US to Mumbai via JFK when this topic came up a week or two ago, just because stopping in Iceland when travelling from the US east of the Mississippi to India doesn’t add much distance.
Stopping in KEF adds only 26 miles compared to a direct flight from EWR to DEL, so from a distance side many of these itineraries (with the exception of SFO and LAX) make a lot of sense.
When you consider the large numbers of Indian ex-pats in the US and Indian students attending US universities, I could see there being enough demand to justify trying this, especially if the prices are right, and especially during peak times of the year. For example, there are TONS of Indian students at Michigan State and U of Mich who are likely to fly home via DTW, and probably also a fair number in areas served by the other airports, though I’m not sure about St Louis. BOS, PIT, and SFO all have significant tech/engineering industries as well, which are traditionally fields that many Indians go into.
“WOW air Announces New Route From The U.S. To India Via Iceland” is misleading. WOW doesn’t have rights to offer a route from the US to India. They announced a route from Iceland to India that supports connections from the US.
I have known and worked with Pieter Elbers, KLM’s CEO, for many years. He is as fine a leader as can be found in the global airline industry. He is capable of leading not only Air France at an exceptional level, but also just about any other airline in the world.