If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em: Etihad & Lufthansa Announce Codeshare Agreement

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em: Etihad & Lufthansa Announce Codeshare Agreement

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As I’ve written about several times over the past few months, airberlin is in financial trouble, and Etihad has a big stake in them. The airline has fundamentally had an identity crisis, and hasn’t been able to decide whether they’re a leisure carrier or business carrier, and has been bleeding money with no end in sight.

Fortunately it looks like some changes are finally happening. As I wrote about in September, Lufthansa will be leasing several dozen planes from airberlin, and using them to operate flights for their own low cost division, Eurowings. I’m not actually confident that Lufthansa will perform much better in those markets, but I’m not sure that’s their primary motivation.

On the surface it seems odd for Lufthansa to help their biggest domestic competitor, rather than just letting them go out of business. However, their motive is clear — the biggest threat to Lufthansa on regional flights is carriers like Easyjet and Ryanair, which up until now haven’t been able to gain too much market share in Germany. Lufthansa knows that if airberlin goes out of business, those carriers will flood the market.

Once Lufthansa takes over those routes, airberlin will be a much smaller and more focused airline, as they’re primarily maintaining their core routes out of Dusseldorf and Berlin.

Today both Etihad and Lufthansa put out a press release regarding their new partnership. In practice the biggest implication is that Lufthansa is taking over so many airberlin planes. But that’s not the most interesting part.

airberlin

The hypocrisy surrounding opposition to Gulf carriers

The hypocrisy of so many major airlines when it comes to Gulf carriers amazes me. The “big three” U.S. carriers are strongly opposed to the Gulf carriers and fight for them to have less access to U.S. markets. Their lobbying group even goes so far as to shame any company that dares associate themselves with these “evil, subsidized Gulf carriers.” For example, they shamed the U.S. Travel Association for working with the Gulf carriers, saying:

“We are writing to you, a member of the board of directors of the U.S. Travel Association, to ask two simple questions: Do you support these labor standards? Do you want to associate your name and your company’s reputation with such repugnant practices?”

The hypocrisy here blows my mind, given that American Airlines has multi-million dollar codeshare partnerships with both Etihad and Qatar Airways. So it’s okay for American to benefit financially from their partnerships with Gulf carriers while they’re actively fighting against them, but if anyone else does the same thing, they’re supporting “repugnant practices.”

Let me be clear — I’m all for airlines partnering with Gulf carriers, it just seems ridiculous to do so while also claiming that they threaten your existence.

evil-kermit

Lufthansa will now codeshare with Etihad

Lufthansa has been an outspoken critic of the Gulf carriers. Here you can read the Lufthansa Group’s 10 page opposition to them. Well, it has just been announced that Etihad and Lufthansa will enter into a codeshare agreement, and “look forward to extending their cooperation:”

Under the codeshare agreement, the German airline will place its ‘LH’ code on Etihad Airways’ twice daily non-stop flights between its home base of Abu Dhabi and Frankfurt and its twice daily non-stop services between Abu Dhabi and Munich, the biggest city in southern Germany.

The UAE’s national airline will, in turn, put its ‘EY’ code on Lufthansa’s long-haul, non-stop intercontinental services between its home base of Frankfurt, the business and commercial capital of Germany, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as well as Bogota, Colombia.

As I wrote about a few weeks ago, Etihad will shortly be pulling out of South America altogether, as they’re cutting their Abu Dhabi to Sao Paulo route. So this new partnership is a smart way for them to continue to be able to offer passengers access to the continent.

Etihad-A340-600

Lufthansa’s CEO even hints at the possibility of the partnership expanding:

“We are looking forward to partnering with the Etihad Aviation Group. The wet-lease contract with airberlin fosters the growth of our Eurowings Group. The codeshare agreement of Lufthansa and Etihad will offer our customers more benefits and complement both airlines’ networks. We will consider extending our cooperation in other areas.”

Bottom line

The Gulf carriers have excess capacity and global route networks, so there’s a lot of value for other major airlines partnering with them. Partnerships like this are great, in my opinion, and there are many airlines that can attest to how mutually beneficial these partnerships can be, like Alaska and Malaysia.

However, I struggle a bit when airlines act like the Gulf carriers are the worst thing to happen to aviation, while agreeing to partner with them for their mutual benefit. I suspect this is a trend we’ll continue to see, as much as many carriers continue to be outraged by Gulf carriers, at least in words.

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  1. John Guest

    Well, I think the hypocrisy is ironic but not surprising. While someone is blocking your way, it is natural to try to get rid of him or her. However, when you find out that you can't, you attempt to get most out of the current situation. Now that large traditional European and American airlines cannot hold the Gulf carriers back from diverting passengers away, they are partnering with them at least to get paid by...

    Well, I think the hypocrisy is ironic but not surprising. While someone is blocking your way, it is natural to try to get rid of him or her. However, when you find out that you can't, you attempt to get most out of the current situation. Now that large traditional European and American airlines cannot hold the Gulf carriers back from diverting passengers away, they are partnering with them at least to get paid by feeding passengers to them. It will be silly if traditional airlines lose long-haul passengers while still refraining themselves from providing connecting passengers to them.

  2. Andy Diamond

    @Boris: As Lucky said, it has not been announced yet. But in line with LH policy you definitely don't earn any status miles, if anything only base miles. But LH has a record of operating many codeshares not earning miles at all ... Beware also in respect of lounge access, unless there's a dramatic policy change, there will be no Star Gold lounge access for flights operated by EY ...

  3. MACH81 Member

    @Paul, when was the last time you've been on AZ? Way ahead of any US carrier for both comfort and catering, definitely better than Lufthansa catering, easier airports to connect, shorter overall flight time, reciprocal FF benefits...

  4. Robert Guest

    Well, this is kind of a special case and clearly part of the Airberlin deal.There is no not much in for Lufthansa in codeshares on the Etihad flights du AUH (no significant traffic to AUH from Germany, most passengers are connecting there), so the exchange was LH getting those Airberlin routes and EY getting those codeshares on LH. Connecting in FRA from EY to LH is gonna suck anyways, doubt many people will do that...

  5. Paul Diamond

    @ Alex
    Because who wants to fly on Alitalia?
    :)

  6. Alex Guest

    Why wouldn't Etihad route its passengers to Rio (and other South American destinations) on Alitalia?

  7. Nico Guest

    Lovely if they can arrange a mileage earning agreement by September 2017 so I can put them on my M&M account if AZ does not cancel my itinerary to SYD.

  8. Boris New Member

    What does it mean in terms of mileage earnings ? Can a miles&more member earn LH miles on etihad flights with LH numbers ?

    1. lucky OMAAT

      @ Boris -- The exact details haven't been announced yet, but I suspect there will be some form of reciprocal mileage earning (though I wouldn't count on reciprocal redemptions).

  9. Mike Guest

    Sleeping with the enemy.. :)

Featured Comments Most helpful comments ( as chosen by the OMAAT community ).

The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

John Guest

Well, I think the hypocrisy is ironic but not surprising. While someone is blocking your way, it is natural to try to get rid of him or her. However, when you find out that you can't, you attempt to get most out of the current situation. Now that large traditional European and American airlines cannot hold the Gulf carriers back from diverting passengers away, they are partnering with them at least to get paid by feeding passengers to them. It will be silly if traditional airlines lose long-haul passengers while still refraining themselves from providing connecting passengers to them.

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Andy Diamond

@Boris: As Lucky said, it has not been announced yet. But in line with LH policy you definitely don't earn any status miles, if anything only base miles. But LH has a record of operating many codeshares not earning miles at all ... Beware also in respect of lounge access, unless there's a dramatic policy change, there will be no Star Gold lounge access for flights operated by EY ...

0
MACH81 Member

@Paul, when was the last time you've been on AZ? Way ahead of any US carrier for both comfort and catering, definitely better than Lufthansa catering, easier airports to connect, shorter overall flight time, reciprocal FF benefits...

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