Asia the prize, not JAL, in Delta-American fight

wow, how insightful of an article, to think no one really wants a bankrupt company as a partner and do not consider such an arrangement to be winning a "prize"

The hope for any airline merger like this is for the major asset, routes (not for planes or manpower).... no one can steal that route from another airline. It's like the airport taxis having a monopoly in big countries; a regular taxi cannot pick up customers at an airport without a special airport license plate.

JAL has been in the game for long enough to own some of the best (and most direct) routes. The new owner(s) will just have to manage money a bit better. JAL bird may be letting go of some droppings, but it's potential fertilizer for growth by other airlines.

What a stupid strategy.

The winner gets a bigger revenue stream, more power to help shape overseas customer options and ticket prices and the potential to one day fly its own aircraft and passengers on JAL’s routes.

Prior to 9/11, both Delta and American had transpacific routes. Both used the post-9/11 slow down as an excuse to discontinue these (though, of course, both were bankrupt before 9/11 anyway).

Both airline's suck, so partnering with JAL will give them viable Asian routes only if they allow JAL to staff and manage them. However, if they are just hoping to acquire JAL to get the routes and then man the planes themselves, they'll lose the customer base that JAL's superior service, particularly in business class, built over the decades.

Under acronyms, someone once said Delta stood for "Don't-even-leave-the-airport".

Like Delta or American are any better run than JAL. Haven't they both been in Chapter 11 for ages?

If either AMR or Delta become the equity partner of JAL, I wonder if they'll be changing the logo's on the airplanes. I was in Fukuoka Airport some years ago and noticed that Qantas and JAL had joint logos affixed to the plane on the Australian-Japanese route from there. Forget it. It's a bad idea; it costs money to repaint the planes which both airlines can ill-afford.

They'll keep the JAL moniker for sure. It's too hard to compete when you're the new guy... or when they don't recognize your name. Why go through another Datsun-Nissan confusion? Anyway, it's an international brand (not that Datsun wasn't) that is too well known and it's not really a crappy brand, just a crappy company.

How can these carriers profit off JAL's routes, when JAL can't?