The recent announcement of CO's intent to switch from SkyTeam to Star Alliance is a bit bittersweet for me. One part of me thinks that CO and *A would fit very well with each other, but another part of me sees the combination of CO's impending withdrawals from some airports and the possible exit of US from *A as being too detrimental to the alliance's ability to cover certain parts of the United States.

Take my "backyard" of East Tennessee, for example. US serves all three of the region's commercial airports -- CHA (from CLT and DCA), TYS (from CLT, DCA, and PHL), and TRI (from CLT). Meanwhile, UA confines its East Tennessee presence to TYS, and CO will do the same once it ends service to CHA on September 3 -- well before CO can realistically change alliances even if approval and completion of the DL / NW merger get fast-tracked.

If US gets to stay in *A once CO comes aboard, then the relatively meager status quo for the alliance at CHA and TRI will prevail. OTOH, if CO's entry into *A is coupled with an exit by US, then not only would TYS become *A's only East Tennessee destination, but the northern (TRI) and southern (CHA) fringes of the region would suddenly find themselves with "fortress spokes" for DL / NW and SkyTeam. (As for Oneworld, AA doesn't serve TRI at all and gives CHA only two daily flights from ORD and one daily flight from DFW.) While travelers in CHA's catchment area could still go to one of five other airports (in clockwise order, TYS, ATL, BHM, HSV, and BNA) within a two-and-a-half-hour drive from downtown Chattanooga in order to fly CO or UA (not to mention LH from ATL or AC from either ATL or BNA), and anyone in the Tri-Cities could still drive two or so hours to either AVL (to fly CO) or TYS (to take either CO or UA), the persistent escalation of oil prices (the apparent culprit behind CO's plan to leave CHA) is making such long drives to airports ever less appealing.

[Edited 2008-06-24 22:14:32]