Originally Posted by
salut0
Not to turn the discussion off track (I don't want to start an argument) but I wonder whether there are political considerations at stake too -- I have a feeling that even if an alliance would be willing to accept El Al as a full member, they might find themselves on the receiving end of a boycott. But perhaps since codeshares and reciprocal FF-mileage earning and burning are common between LY and its partners, and have not elicited any boycott or backlash, full alliance membership wouldn't do so either.
I think you are right that it is another concern, but practically no alliance would benefit from having LY as a member. As stated it wouldn't add any additional destinations. It wouldn't make routing pax any easier. TLV is a destination, not a hub. If there were peace in the ME and LY started to fly over the neighboring countries then perhaps a US airline would find it beneficial to fly pax to TLV and then onwards eastwards. But as it stands now the extra 2 hours to get anywhere east is not attractive.