Travel: On the trail of ...

An American ally.

The link between British Airways and American Airlines, announced yesterday, is nothing new; in the early 1980s AA and BA shared ticket offices as well as marketing muscle. Since then, BA has been promiscuous in its selection of US partners - a failed romance with United Airlines led to the financial crash of 1989, and at present it is sharing flight codes with USAir, the airline for whom the adjective "troubled" was invented.