Photo: caribb / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
All Nippon Airways blasted into New York City last night, entertaining contingents of journalists, travel agents and corporate biggies in back to back receptions at the Times Center. ANA, which had typically played second fiddle to flag carrier Japan Airlines, had obviously scheduled this event long before its troubled arch-rival had been forced to declare bankruptcy just days ago.
ANA was here to roll out a host of service upgrades that will start appearing on long-distance flights next month—everything from giving coach fliers a few extra inches of legroom (to 34-inch pitch, which ought to ease leg cramps on the thirteen hour flight from New York to Tokyo) to new first class and biz class flat beds.
Studying the
latter, I was accosted by a pair of reporters for Nippon Television. They
seemed to sum up the strange vibe by first asking me if I’d try out the
bed for the benefit of their cameras, and then asking me (in the same
breath) what I thought about JAL’s strange slide into insolvency.
Then flight attendants came to my rescue, shoving a pillow under my head as I clumsily fumbled with the buttons needed to turn my seat into a flat bed. The bankruptcy news is hardly a shocker, told them. After all, every major U.S. airline with the exception of American has been in and out of bankruptcy in recent years, sometimes multiple times. It’s the rinse cycle of our financial system: the companies get protection from creditors so they can get their houses in order, and everyone’s ultimately better off than if the company had simply shut down overnight. And it has virtually no impact on service from the customers’ side—planes keep taking off and landing, you can keep your miles, business as usual. Except, of course, a large number of workers stand to lose their jobs, which will be a hard pill to swallow at the once-proud JAL and could affect their reputation for top-notch service.
So what’s the JAL situation mean to us? Well, it could influence the ultimate line-up of the alliance partners and it’s already set off a battle among two U.S. giants. American, which is already JAL’s partner by dint of the OneWorld grouping, is pushing to invest in the Japanese carrier while Delta, now a powerhouse in Asia through its merger of Northwest, is trying to lure JAL to its SkyTeam alliance. Both are offering big bucks to the crippled Japanese line—reporting upwards of $500 million—in exchange for a substantial stake in its future. ANA, meanwhile, is already in bed, so to speak, with United as part of the Star Alliance.
And speaking of beds… That new flat bed in business class was actually quite comfy. Combine it with the the new 17-inch video screens and video on demand and ANA could give JAL, United, and all the other players in the Pacific a run for their money.
Then flight attendants came to my rescue, shoving a pillow under my head as I clumsily fumbled with the buttons needed to turn my seat into a flat bed. The bankruptcy news is hardly a shocker, told them. After all, every major U.S. airline with the exception of American has been in and out of bankruptcy in recent years, sometimes multiple times. It’s the rinse cycle of our financial system: the companies get protection from creditors so they can get their houses in order, and everyone’s ultimately better off than if the company had simply shut down overnight. And it has virtually no impact on service from the customers’ side—planes keep taking off and landing, you can keep your miles, business as usual. Except, of course, a large number of workers stand to lose their jobs, which will be a hard pill to swallow at the once-proud JAL and could affect their reputation for top-notch service.
So what’s the JAL situation mean to us? Well, it could influence the ultimate line-up of the alliance partners and it’s already set off a battle among two U.S. giants. American, which is already JAL’s partner by dint of the OneWorld grouping, is pushing to invest in the Japanese carrier while Delta, now a powerhouse in Asia through its merger of Northwest, is trying to lure JAL to its SkyTeam alliance. Both are offering big bucks to the crippled Japanese line—reporting upwards of $500 million—in exchange for a substantial stake in its future. ANA, meanwhile, is already in bed, so to speak, with United as part of the Star Alliance.
And speaking of beds… That new flat bed in business class was actually quite comfy. Combine it with the the new 17-inch video screens and video on demand and ANA could give JAL, United, and all the other players in the Pacific a run for their money.
Leave a comment