Take away points from that article ...
- Asia Pacific codeshare, which may not be a big deal now, will be a big deal in the future.
- A Delta / Skymarks combo is a market winner.
- There is little doubt in my mind SkyMark is a whole lot cheaper than anything Delta could do considering the credit involved in getting a narrow body crew (let's say the 737-900 that seems to draw blank responses from network planning were to go to Asia) into position & operating under FTDT regs.
- Skymarks is about to grow rapidly ... where are they going to find crews?
- Delta is about margins, not gross revenues. Fees for selling a ticket on another carrier can be 100% profit. The cost of the computer servers and folks to answer the phones are already amortized by the rest of the business.
- Skymarks is Japan's worst airline ... yeah ... so was GoJets, ASA, Mesaba (pick your partner) ... doesn't seem to effect codeshare much ... cheap sells