Interlining between legacy and low-cost airlines

On another topic dealing with complaints, somebody brought up the subject of interlining between low cost and legacy airlines. This is a continuation of the news shown on BT yesterday.

http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/102070/easyjet-to-align-with-lufthansa

Mention has been made of the talks between Ryanair and IAG about possible co-operation, though this is recent news so will be early days yet. The following article mentions Ryanair´s talks with other airlines, TAP, Virgin Atlantic and Norwegian Air Shuttle as well. I do not doubt that the talks with IAG arise as a result of Ryanair´s shareholding in Aer Lingus being sought at the time.
“Ryanair In Talks On Interline Deals” (Airwise/Reuters 10-8-15)

http://news.airwise.com/story/ryanair-in-talks-on-interline-deals

It should be emphasised that BA has interlined and even codeshared with IAG partner Vueling for some time and is expanding this deal. It is also known that this sort of co-operation has extended between Vueling and Iberia, between Iberia Express and Iberia as well as others.

http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/102052/ba-and-vueling-expand-codeshare-routes

Lufthansa has set up Eurowings (and formerly Germanwings) to provide feed to Frankfurt and Munich.

No doubt Air France and KLM will extend their co-operation with Transavia.

transtaxman –

Just wanted to point out that Lufthansa itself operates feeder flights to/from Frankfurt and Munich.

German Wings/Eurowings operate flights to/from other regional airports along with the capital Berlin.

I am rather intrigued by the Gatwick offer since when you think about, we already incur costs for interlining. If I was using an LCC to connect with another airline, I would have to allow extra time (possibly including an overnight stay in a hotel). In addition, the extra time given would be used to pay for meals and drinks and before long you have a substantial cost (which can still be worth it). So an interlining fee that guarantees a connection or next flight may be cost effective.

Come the next downturn, now many airlines have gone through major cost cutting programmes, there must be a possibility that they will no longer have any more operational costs to cut.

Ryanair, with the lowest costs of the larger players, will be well positioned to help the legacies stay in business, by delivering connecting passengers at a bearable cost per seat, allowing them to cut back their inefficient short haul routes.

Sometime ago in a post I mentioned that BA should let EY run their short haul ops as they seem to do this so efficiently. It seems the Germans have realised this and are doing it instead. It actually makes good sense though I’m not sure how happy premium passengers will be flying LCC then onto a longhaul flight in F or C, let alone the other way! However, the feeder flights are pretty basic anyway and as long as they prioritise boarding and all the other things that make travelling that much easier for premium travel I guess they’ll cope.

Malpensa airport also offers an interlining service connecting passengers to/from LCC’s to / from other airlines. I’ve had good reports though I’ve not used it myself.

http://www.flyviamilano.eu/en/

KLM and AF also interline to Etihad flights, with their code share agreement of 10 years.
Cityjet was sold off by The Group, but IF you book on the KLM website, it counts as a KLM flight, so you do not have the low cost services of Cityjet, your booking has a KL prefix. Otherwise you may pay for luggage, and have to collect baggage and re-check in for your connecting flight, meaning you may miss this!
Very important if you connect to a KLM flight or another Airline if they have the same agreement

Its a good idea to consider though the practicality is difficult, LCC’s will take no responsibilty for transfer bags, preferring pax to do that, & the nature of LCC flying is that flights get delayed later in the day so transfer times have to be increased – will they put that into computers for connections? The IAG airlines are different since they have one owner & they are not really LCC’s although they operate at low costs.