Originally Posted by
slowplay
We do bring value to the table, and if everything goes our way I expect we may be abe to extract some of that value. We are starting from behind in this deal, so we don't have the leverage that you may think we have. The US Government is protecting its own interests in Japan first. Our company may suffer for that. The Japanese are protecting their investment. Our company is currently a competitor to that investment. The Japanese are culturally a very loyal society. They have an existing deal with AMR, and that carries weight. AMR can accurately claim they've paid every dollar that they've ever owed a creditor. Delta and NWA can't, and that's a cultural disadvantage.
The downside risks for Delta pilots in the combined Japan case are far greater than the upside potential. The Haneda access and "open skies" pieces are far more threatening than the JAL piece alone. In my view the same is true for AMR and APA pilots, but in a different priority. They can't afford to lose JAL, as One World would be relegated to a second tier alliance, but a Japanese version of "open skies" wouldn't hurt them nearly as badly as they're a bit player in Tokyo. UAL is in a pretty good place with ANA sown up no matter which way this goes.
A very loyal society. Want to guess who pretty much started JAL as an airline? Northwest Orient. No loyalty there any longer.
Would you also like to explain how NWA spent all the money designing the interior of half of Terminal 1 and did all the market research for the design and watched the Japanese give that section to UAL? If you want the real story, ask RA, he went to Narita after it happened and there were many embarassed on the Japanese side of that deal.
I don't buy the loyalty argument.
FWIW JAL has done many strange things to get around "bilateral difficulties" there is/was a branch called Japan-Asia Airways. They formed it because the mainland Chinese told JAL that they couldn't fly to Taiwan if they wanted to keep flying to mainland China.
All of a sudden Japan-Asia appears in a very JAL-like livery and starts flying Japan-Taiwan routes.
The fake "charter" international flights out of Haneda are also good indicators that modern JAL is not anywhere near as rigid or culturally influenced as some would believe.