http://press.jal.co.jp/en/release/201202/002015.html airberlin will become a full member of oneworld® with effect from Tuesday 20 March 2012, addingEurope’s sixth largest carrier to the premier global airline alliance. Austrian airline NIKI, also a member of the airberlin group, will join oneworld at the same time as an affiliate member.
Am looking forward to the possibility of other options for getting to/thru/across Europe, besides BA/IB.
Well, only sort of? Their long-haul fleet has a business class, they do serve some free food & drink in-flight (even on short-haul legs) but it does compete with a lot of LCCs on some routes. It's also the only (Western?) airline I've ever been on that still featured a smoking section in the back of the plane (TXL-CIA) in the early 2000s. Now I don't smoke, but college junior me obviously requested a seat in the (empty) smoking section just to be able to say I'd been on a flight that wasn't 100% non-smoking.
Oh wow, that surprised me (and not in a good way). According to some Google research, they disallowed smoking in November 2004. http://3ww.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/1644123/ I was on a few TATL when smoking was still allowed, and it was miserable. I remember sitting in the row behind or in front of the smoking section and having clouds of smoke just waft over me. If smoking was still allowed today, I'd most definitely not be a 1K on UA.
You missed the good old days when IB had smoking on one side of the aisle and nonsmoking on the other side. For a while, nonsmokers were the majority but most of the Spanards still smoked, so they each had a row to themselves on average and everyone else was jammed in, including middle seats. It's a wonder the aircraft didn't fly tilted!
I remember the active smokers sitting in nonsmoking and smoking there, because they didn't want to sit in the smoking section. The worst was seeing FAs sit down in nonsmoking for a smoke.
There is finally a carrier serving the German market for Oneworld effectively. CX, JL, and AA only serve FRA and BA only has a handful of destinations.
Air Berlin, wow that seriously surprised me. I thought in general OW only took quality airlines in. AB might have changed in the last year, but I've had some really miserable flights on AB and it most definitely is a LCC intra-europe. I have not tried them intercontinental and can see that one of their two types of IC aircrafts do have some business seats, so it might be better, but quality wise I'd say this is a big step down for OW (even though they also have IB). Edit LCC awards, and thus power to my claim of LCC, can be seen here: http://www.airberlin.com/site/pressnews_dr.php?ID=236&LANG=eng
I wonder if you'll still be saying that after they update their premium cabin to match Etihad's? LINK. AB is the 6th largest carrier in Europe and helps fill many existing holes in the continental Europe OW network and especially helps now that MA is dead. This is certainly an upgrade for OW, and now that Etihad has influence over AB they seem to be moving away from the LCC model. The planned investment in a new premium cabin seat is a strong sign that they intent to up their game.
Double miles offer to frequent flyers as airberlin joins A special double miles offer is being made to cardholders of all oneworld member airlines' frequent flyer programmes - including those of airberlin's topbonus programme - to mark the addition to the alliance today of Germany's second biggest airline, along with its group member Austria's NIKI. http://finchannel.com/news_flash/Tr..._offer_to_frequent_flyers_as_airberlin_joins/
Same from AY too here I might be crediting all my AY flights to these guys from now on. At least with AB's topbonus, it is easier to climb the ladder on OW than AY + Found out now that it's even more easier to climb with S7 priority
