American Goes Public to Save JAL Partnership

DALLAS (TheStreet) -- Battling to save its partnership with Japan Airlines, AMR's(AMR) American Airlines is going public.

On Monday, CEO Gerard Arpey went to Mexico City to welcome Mexicana into the Oneworld alliance. The event was Webcast, and Arpey spoke about JAL. A few days earlier, American released a transcript of Arpey's remarks to its fall leadership conference, where he talked about JAL. Additionally, Arpey recently did a rare video interview, released Tuesday, for an investment analyst's report. He talked about JAL there as well.

Meanwhile, Oneworld on Sunday was recognized as the world's leading travel alliance for the seventh year in a row in the World's Travel Awards, which polled 180,000 travel agents and other travel professionals, according to a Oneworld press release. The message is clear: If travel agents think Oneworld is the best alliance, shouldn't JAL think the same thing?

American has a 10-year-old partnership with JAL, which includes code-sharing, frequent flyer reciprocity and membership in Oneworld. About 40% of American's passengers to Tokyo connect to other Asian cities on JAL. But with JAL restructuring, Delta(DAL) is seeking to replace American as JAL's partner.

"American is trying to get the public fired up," says aviation consultant Mike Boyd. "They need to have the public and the government on their side, because JAL is critical to American."

Delta, by contrast, has said nothing publicly about its efforts, beyond a few remarks by CEO Richard Anderson during the third-quarter earnings conference call.

"Delta doesn't have to say anything," Boyd says. "Delta is the one yanking the chain."