Chris Jasper/LONDON Julian Moxon/PARIS
Air France is moving closer to enlisting new airline allies to launch a global grouping alongside Delta Air Lines. Austrian Airlines is thought to be close to defecting from the Swissair-led Qualiflyer alliance and British Midland (BM) is being targeted as part of the recruitment offensive.
The French flag carrier's director general of international business, Patrick Alexandre, is strongly in favour of bringing Austrian into the planned grouping. "For us, Austrian Airlines is the first choice. It would be a key partner," he tells an Austrian newspaper.
Tyrolean Airways, which is 100%-owned by Austrian, has also agreed eight new codeshares with Delta on services from Vienna. The US major is to codeshare with Austrian between that city and Harare, Zimbabwe, after previously having done so with Swissair.
Austrian has been pondering its future since Delta - which was linked to the Qualiflyer airlines via the North Atlantic Excellence Alliance - decided to throw in its lot with Air France. Swissair is thought to regard an alliance with the French airline as impossible, mainly for competitive reasons, but for Austrian the decision is less clear cut.
Austrian, which has market strengths in central and eastern Europe, the near east and central Asia, is also being courted by the Star Alliance. Lauda Airlines, which is 36%-owned by Austrian and openly admits that it "would not mind leaving Qualiflyer", said last week that it favours joining the Lufthansa-led group. Austrian says it will determine its strategy by the end of the year, and that a decision could be taken at a board meeting on 21 September.
Air France, meanwhile, continues to make overtures to (BM), with the UK airline's chairman Sir Michael Bishop saying that a three-month Dresdner Kleinwort Benson study on its alliance options is nearing conclusion.
He expects, "within a matter of weeks, to be able to announce a global alliance partner". BM had been expected to commit to Star, but Bishop stressed last week that a 40% SAS shareholding in his airline does not make such a move inevitable.
• Air France has signed a co-operation agreement with South African Airways (SAA), under which SAA will provide connections with the European airline's Johannesburg flights. The deal follows the recent termination of operations by Sun Air, with which Air France was partnered.
The airline is also thought to be close to sealing an alliance with Italian regional Meridiana, which specialises in services between Sardinia and mainland Italy. A deal might also involve an investment, although a majority stake is unlikely to be sold. Meridiana is unable to do a deal with Alitalia because of anti-trust issues.
Air France has announced a Fr946 million ($153 million) net profit for the first quarter, against Fr54 million for the same period last year, when it was hit by a pilots' strike. In contrast to some European majors, it says transatlantic business is booming.
Source: Flight International
