Rumor: JAL decided to dump AA for DL

Once again, there's a rumor floating around that Japan Airlines has made up its mind on the alliance issue. This time the rumor is from The Manichi Daily News. According to the report JAL will announce the new partner on Inamori's first day of work on Monday.

Also mentioned in the reports are some new routes (yes new routes!) that JAL will start because of the switch to the Skyteam. JAL will start Narita-Detroit (Delta's hub) and Haneda-Amsterdam (KLM's hub). And of course ATI will be applied.

The main reason behind the switch is the benefit of allying with DL is way more than that with AA. If ATI is approved, the benefit with DL is 17.2 billion yen. Even if the ATI application fails, the benefit is around 9.2 billion yen, still more than AA's 5.4 billion yen.

That means go ahead AA. Go fight vigorously. Either way JAL will benefit more than allying with you LOL. And this might also mean the end of JL009/010 to Chicago, which is AA's hub. Another big issue is the terminal situation at Narita. Not sure if JAL will move to T1 or DL will move to T2. Either way, one of them have to move otherwise connection at NRT will be really annoying. Monday will be an interesting day :)