FWIW, I can't see VS joining *A anytime soon despite SQ's 49% shareholding in the carrier (which they have had for almost a decade). VS is Branson's baby and I can't see LH wanting to properly involve themselves with VS unless LH were able to dominate the carrier and push for full integration with BD which is where real cost synergies could take place.

Full integration between VS and BD is unlikely to be realistic however, unless LH owned the lion's share and as Branson is unlikely to ever want to give up control, it is just not likely to happen. Branson seems to treat VS in a very different way to all his other businesses and with most of them, he is happy to sell them off and make money through providing marketing rights. VS however is one enterprise he is never really ever likely to make huge sums of cash from yet he continues to hold onto this asset which suggests his attachment to the airline is at a more emotional level.

More codeshares between BD/VS and perhaps LH are a definite possibility, but I doubt much more than a cursory FF partnership is likely to happen at this stage. With this in mind, I strongly suspect that when LH get the rest of BD which will lead to the the rationalisation of BD's DC programme into LH's M&M will possibly lead to M&M accepting VS as a mileage earning partner (without status earning of course). Pure conjecture of course, but I feel a likely scenario.

Finally in respect to what constitutes a strong alliance, I have always felt Star is the most integrated of all the alliances and OneWorld the least integrated largely because OneWorld features more carriers who generally quite large in their own right (AA, BA, QF, CX & JL) compared to Star where LH and UA dominate the rest of the group and LH's gobbling up of it's small Euro *A partners.

SkyTeam also seems a little more integrated although this is likely more due to the fact that AF and KL are integrated, and they in turn have a minority stake in DL/NW (KL used to have a stake in NW and I believe AF also owned a small holding in DL although I am not sure how of the resulting percentages now that the consolidation of the carriers various carriers has taken place). KL also is a big shareholder in KQ so this should also be considered. As with Star, AF and DL really do dominate the rest of the alliance as they are so much bigger than the rest of their peers which really makes OneWorld the odd one out of the big three alliances.

OneWorld also don't have any ownership ties between alliance members with the exception of BA and IB (although at one stage BA did own 25% of QF). Even the IB and BA tie in seems to have resulted fairly little integration and I would suggest that the QF/BA JSA on the Roo route seems to result in arguably a more tangible partnership than the IB/BA JSA on flights between the UK and Spain. Obviously the IB/BA partnership will change quite dramatically should the two decide to continue their intended merger.