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 THERE WAS a civilised
time once when televisions were black and white and no matter what
you were viewing – Kovalam in Kerala or a beach in Pattaya
(Phuket had not been invented yet) – it was always snowing
on screen. If you perused an average atlas you had an immediate
appreciation of how big the world really was, especially when compared
to your wallet. A welter of red lines criss-crossed the globe like
varicose veins. These were travel routes, shipping lines. And they
offered a unique commodity. Choice.
Today the world
has shrunk though Anna Nicole Smith billows unbowed. Our wallets
are smaller still. But we have more choice, right? In the information
age now where six-year-olds can finally watch character-building
TV shows like World’s Scariest Police Chases, the consumer
is king. In the old days you might have foolishly assumed the shortest
distance between two points was a straight line. Well that’s
gobbledegook. Who would want to fly direct from, say, Johannesburg
to Dubai, when they could go via Frankfurt (with a bonus eight-hour
airport transit)? That’s right, a bonus eight hours eating
sausages and doubling the distance flown. To get this incredible
value you’d have to choose Star Alliance and Lufthansa which
would then route you through its Frankfurt “hub”.
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Take Delhi-Nairobi.
Of course you could do it the old-fashioned way and fly Air-India
direct from Mumbai. How dull. Savvy travellers would pick the seamless
Oneworld route and do it on British Airways, Delhi-London-Nairobi,
with a convenient 15-hour layover at Heathrow that offers ample
time for changing babies’ nappies, arguing with your wife
and having a nervous breakdown.
That's right. A bonus eight hours eating sausages at Frankfurt airport and doubling the distance flown. Why would you fly direct?
Bigger airlines
and combines like Oneworld, Star Alliance and Skyteam have expanded
our skies by turning simple three-hour trips into memorable all-day
affairs. This is why travellers in the US find themselves constantly
changing planes in cattle ranches in the largely abandoned Mid West.
These are hubs. The flights you take in and out are spokes. The
airline people who tell you all this makes sense, are spokespersons.
Oneworld, which
includes American Airlines, Aer Lingus, British Airways, Cathay
Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Lan Chile and Qantas, says it employs
“over 260,000 people in over 130 countries.” Oneworld
flies to 550 destinations. Star Alliance, which includes Lufthansa,
Lauda-Air, Scandinavian Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Thai, United
and Varig, covers 729 airports in 124 countries making it the biggest
biggie. There is a third grouping – Skyteam. This includes
Korean Air, Air France, Delta, AeroMexico and Czech Airlines.
What does this
mean in real terms? Let’s say, you want a European holiday
taking in Paris, Milan, Athens and London. Flying out of Asia in
the old days you might have simply connected the dots and done something
like London-Paris-Milan-Athens-Home. Of course if you were distracted
by something weighty like the aforementioned Anna Nicole Smith,
you might inadvertently book London-Paris-(Playboy-Mansion)-Confessional,
which goes beyond the purview of this column.
Hubs and spokes are always there for us and American cattle in the Mid West count airplanes to fall asleep
On Star Alliance
you would likely fly Lufthansa to Frankfurt. Then you’d connect
to London. All your points would be through Frankfurt (or Munich)
so you’d get London-Frankfurt-Paris, Paris-Frankfurt/Munich-Milan,
Milan-Frankfurt-Athens. From here you could fly home in soft focus
with Singapore Airlines (which can make it hard to find the loo),
or smooth as silk on Thai. On Oneworld you’d fly British Airways
and hub through London getting to wave to the Queen quite a few
times in the process. Well it’s just after the golden jubilee
year. Why be small in this age of big?
There are few
special fares for intra-Europe routings so the more sensible will
go ahead and join the dots anyway and save a lot of time and bother.
It will cost about the same as going the alliance route. Remember,
airline groupings work pretty much like jealous restaurateurs. They
want customers to dine at their chain exclusively. They won’t
abide pepperoni mixing with the tandoori.
Switch carriers,
say Alitalia, to fly Paris-Milan (on a Star Alliance round-the-world),
and you’ll be penalised for this pesky add-on. I used the
Alitalia option to Milan and paid handsomely for this privilege.
I was later pick-pocketed by a group of urchins outside the Duomo
who were obviously unaware of the decline of the Asian economy.
One of them came back a few minutes later, contrite – to return
my ticket. Even they respect cross-alliance derring-do.
Airlines plying
trunk routes are muscling out middlemen, the smaller destinations.
They wish to connect large, high-traffic markets with other large
producer markets. Fiji, which once had about ten major airlines
serving it is now overflown and dropped entirely by all but two:
Air New Zealand and Qantas (which codeshares with Air Pacific).
Manila has fallen off the map. But we fly secure in the knowledge
that Frankfurt is always there for us. And American cattle in the
Mid West count airplanes to fall asleep.
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