I'm guess IB does not see -- or does not want to think about -- the day when the LCC's will attack their fortress hub directly. http://www.e-tid.com/pma/24380 LCCs force Iberia retreat 06 Dec 2005 Iberia is planning to axe services that do not pass through its Madrid hub as it is no longer able to compete with low-cost carriers operating the same routes. Reuters reports Iberia chief executive, Angel Mullor, told the airline?s in-house magazine Iberiavion that certain services had not been profitable for several years now because of budget competition. ?All these point-to-point routes, which do not pass through Madrid, are routes we will have to start abandoning,? he said. ?These will be routes which only low-cost companies are going to be able to operate. ?They have already thrown us out of six routes from Barcelona, and we are now in serious danger of losing routes such as Galicia to the UK, where easyJet or Ryanair have started, and we can?t compete with them.? Last month Spanish daily La Gaceta de los Negocios reported Mullor said Iberia was considering offers to invest in three low-cost carriers, which are about to begin operating from Catalonia and Bilbao. While reiterating that starting its own budget subsidiary was not part of Iberia?s current strategic plan, which runs until 2008, he said it would study all three offers in detail. --------------------------------- Yahoo! Personals Single? There's someone we'd like you to meet. Lots of someones, actually. Yahoo! Personals