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- With dozens of flights a day operated by several major airlines, the New York-London route is a fiercely competitive one.
- American Airlines and British Airways operate a trans-Atlantic joint venture, and together offer the most flights a day between the two cities.
- I recently flew a round-trip with one flight operated by American Airlines, and one by British Airways. Here's how they compared.
American Airlines and British Airways have been relatively tight-knit partners since at least 1999, when the Oneworld airline alliance launched.
They became even more intertwined in 2010 when they formed a trans-Atlantic joint venture - along with fellow Oneworld member and Spanish flag carrier Iberia. Unlike alliance or code-share partners, joint venture partners collaborate to set routes and prices, and operate specific routes together as one business with immunity from anti-trust regulations.
Effects of the joint venture are seen more clearly on the high-demand New York City - London route than almost anywhere else. Flown dozens of times a day by at least seven different airlines, the route is a competitive one, attracting both cost-saving leisure travelers looking for the most cost-effective way to fly families across the Atlantic, and business travelers who book high-cost last-minute tickets for urgent meetings and conferences.
However, despite competition from other airlines flying the busy New York-London route, the American Airlines and British Airways joint venture dominates, partly because of the number of flights they operate on the route - about 15 on an average weekday, which is more than any competing airline offers.
The joint venture is tight-knit and seamless enough that when you search for flights on one of the airlines' websites, results from both airlines appear, indistinguishable from each other aside from a tiny note staying that the flight is operated by the partner. That's how my wife and I ended up with an outbound flight operated by American Airlines, and a return flight on British Airways metal. I bought the tickets through British Airways during a sale.
Not only did we fly a leg on each airline - we had a chance to fly the same exact type of plane, a Boeing 777-200. Although I usually fly between New York and the UK once a year or so, I hadn't flown a long-haul American Airlines flight in economy in a while, and my last flight on British Airways, which was a few years ago, was on a different type of plane - a 747-400. So, I was curious to see how the experiences compared.
While both the American Airlines day-time flight to Heathrow, and the British Airways afternoon flight out of London Gatwick were pleasant, here's how they compared in a direct head-to-head.
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