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Flight Connections Links to the World's Airlines  The global airline landscape includes a large number of competitors with most still linked to their home nations. In the U.S., the world's largest air traffic market, six airlines carry the often-used label of "legacy carriers." These are American (based in Dallas), United (Chicago), Delta (Atlanta), Northwest (Minneapolis), Continental (Houston) and US Airways (Phoenix). A second grouping takes the name of "low-cost carriers," though the term is used loosely. The biggest and most famous among them is Southwest (Dallas). Others include jetBlue (New York), AirTran (Orlando/Atlanta), Frontier (Denver), Midwest (Milwaukee), Spirit (Fort Lauderdale) and ATA (Indianapolis). Alaska (Seattle) and two Hawaiian carriers — Hawaiian and Aloha — round out the list of major mainline-plane competitors. Several small carriers such as Allegiant, USA 3000, Sun Country and North American operate limited service at the fringes of the competitive landscape. Regional airlines are today a more important part of the U.S. airline industry than ever. These carriers operate regional jets with fewer than 100 seats, partnering with legacy carriers to feed their hubs with traffic. SkyWest, Mesa and Republic are three of the biggest, with Air Wisconsin and Trans States among the others. ExpressJet, Pinnacle and Mesaba are now independent but still closely linked to their former parent companies. Another group, including American Eagle (American), Comair (Delta) and Horizon (Alaska), are wholly owned by their legacy parents. In Canada, the industry is dominated by just two airlines: Air Canada (Montreal) and WestJet (Canada), a low-cost competitor. Latin America's most successful legacy carrier is LAN, which has partially-owned subsidiaries in a number of Latin countries. Right behind it is TAM, which operates in the large market of Brazil. Its major competitors are Varig and Gol, one of the world's most profitable low-cost carriers. Aerolineas Argentinas and Avianca are two other significant players in South America. TACA and Copa are two strong carriers in Central America, while Mexico features Aeromexico, Mexicana and a host of new startups slated to begin service in 2006. In Europe, British Airways, Air France and Lufthansa are considered the "Big Three" competitors. Aside from the Netherlands and Switzerland, whose national airlines folded into Air France and Lufthansa, respectively, each European nation retains its own independent "flag" carrier. These include SAS (actually a joint venture involving Denmark, Sweden and Norway), Iberia (Spain), Alitalia (Italy), Aer Lingus (Ireland), Austrian, Finnair (Finland), TAP (Portugal), Olympic (Greece), SN Brussels (Belgium), CSA (Czech), LOT (Poland) and Malev (Hungary). Carriers such as Virgin Atlantic (U.K.), BMI (U.K.), Air Europa (Spain) and Icelandair are harder to categorize but are important competitors. There are an estimated 50 low-cost carriers in Europe, with new ones emerging and old ones dying regularly. The largest is Ryanair (Ireland), followed by easyJet (U.K.) and Air Berlin (Germany/Spain). Other significant players are Germanwings (half owned by Lufthansa), dba (Germany), Vueling (Spain), Sterling (Denmark), Virgin Express (Belgium). Further east, SkyEurope (Slovakia) and WizzAir (Poland) are low-cost leaders. Many other charter and semi-scheduled airlines compete for European traffic as well. In the large but under-stimulated Russian market, Aeroflot remains the biggest airline. It is followed by S7, KrasAir and Pulkovo. In the Middle East, Emirates is fast-becoming one of the most strategically-important global airlines. Their business model is closely followed by Qatar and Etihad. Most other countries in the region have their own flag carriers as well, including Turkey (Turkish Airways), Jordan (Royal Jordanian), Egypt (EgyptAir), Lebanon (Middle East Airlines) Kuwait (Kuwait Airways) and Israel (El Al). There is just one major low-cost carrier, Air Arabia (U.A.E.) Eight major airlines compete in India: Air India, Indian Airlines, Jet Airways, Air Sahara, Air Deccan, Kingfisher, SpiceJet and GoAir. China's fast-growing airline industry is led by Air China, China Southern and China Eastern. Hainan, Xiamen Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Okay Airways and Spring Airlines are others. Cathay Pacific and Dragonair dominate Hong Kong, while China Airlines and Eva Airways do the same in Taiwan. In the ASEAN region of Southeast Asia, Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines and Thai Airways compete for traffic with low-fare rivals AirAsia, Tiger Airways (partially owned by Singapore Airlines), Jetstar Asia (partially owned by Qantas) and Nok Air (partially owned by Thai Airways). Two Japanese carriers, Japan Airlines and All Nippon, join Korea's Korean Air and Asiana as North Asia's most important competitors. Australia and New Zealand feature three major airlines: Qantas, Air New Zealand and Virgin Blue, the latter a low-cost carrier. Africa also features many small airlines servicing their home nations. South African and Kenya Airways (partially owned by Air France/ KLM) are the most international. Virgin Nigeria is also notable. Airline Weekly sponsors:   |
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