oneworld has officially sweetened JAL's offer

Executives from American Airlines, British Airways, Qantas, and Cathay Pacific held a press conference at Tokyo today to announce the latest offer to Japan Airlines from oneworld.

There are three main parts of the JAL offer.

1. Enhanced commercial benefits from AA, BA, and QF
• Total benefits of USD2 billion over the next three years. This includes USD1.5B on the ongoing revenue currently JAL enjoys, USD3 million revenue guaranteed from AA, and USD2 million from BA.
• BA will start a joint business venture with JAL from April 2011 subject to regulatory approval. And BA will support and facilitate new service between London Heathrow and Tokyo Haneda.
• BA will double JAL codeshare routes in Europe from April 2010.
• BA will move from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 at Narita to improve connectivity to JAL flights. 
• Qantas give will its expertise (no money) of having dual brand airlines to JAL.
2. AA offers its "innovative" expertise and guidance to JAL
• AA has turned around itself since it launched its own turnaround plan in 2003.
• AA will offer its 83 years of experience in areas like fleet planning, network analysis, financial forecasting, revenue management, and maintenance operations.
• AA will offer its cost-saving and structural improvement experience.
• AA and TPG will invest up to USD1.4 billion, up from the previous USD1.1 billion.
3. CX, QF and JAL offer unique cornerstone hubs in Asia
• Basically CX and QF is offering nothing other than their own hubs which are located in and close to Asia.

There are not much changes compare to the previous offer. The main differences are AA increases its offer by USD3 million. BA will start a joint business venture.

I am not sure why QF is listed under part 1 when they don't actually count towards the USD2B revenue other than the ones they currently generate for JAL. If QF is listed there, all other OW carriers should be LOL.

I don't even know why CX bothers to participate in today's press conference. Basically they are not offering anything new to JAL other than saying "Oh we are close to each other geographically and our hubs are strategically placed so we are good for each other". Please... CX!

As for increasing BA codeshares, is UK the ideal place for Europe transfer for JAL passengers? Isn't Air France's Paris hub a better place (geographically) for Japanese passengers? Fine, the flight time from Tokyo to London and Paris are the same but I think Paris is closer to Spain and Italy LOL

And please, don't offer your advise AA. I don't like your cost saving and structural changes you made over the years. I don't want to pay for my meals and for checked bags. And no membership fee for the lounge please LOL And I don't think AA has the right fleet and route network. If you had the right network, you wouldn't be scrambling right now to save JAL and in some way save your own Asia network. And no maintenance advice either. I don't want JAL fleet to have all those maintenance issues AA had on its own MD-80.

To me this offer doesn't change much. But this time, oneworld stress the point of they will save the Japanese tax payers money and are of their best interests. (Looks like they have learned something from their previous press release :) The cash increase is nothing compared to the long-term success of JAL. By picking the correct partners, JAL will generate far more than whatever is offered from either OW or Delta.