I posted a thread a while ago asking what makes an alliance strong - at least from the airline's perspective (after all if it is not good for the airline the alliance eventually will cease to exist) - I had always thought that OW did the right thing by limiting the number of partners thereby maximizing the benefits for each carrier in terms of through traffic from the other alliance airlines. Reading the latest news from OW on the OW website it appears that this is exactly the situation, which means that limiting the number of airlines means greater benefits for those that are in the alliance. For instance - if I wanted to get from NYC to KUL using OW - realistically I will either fly JL or CX all the way, or possibly AA to NRT and then JL - but basically JL or CX will benefit from me wanting to get to KUL. With *A the pax wanting to get from NYC to KUL has so many options - SQ/TG/OZ/NH/CA. I acknowledge that the larger alliance means more travellers but I still think too many airlines starts to defeat the objective. Having said all that I do agree that OW needs a presence in China and India and Africa and I hope that LA manages to get a foothold in Brazil. But keep the expansion really focused and limited and keep the alliance strong.