I would not say so. OW has a presence in the "suburbs" of the continent only (Finland, Spain, UK). They are now in the position to offer a massive network in he heart of Europe. AB offers connections to provincial airports hardly anbody else offers. Furthermore they offer a substantial Spanish network. I wonder, how Iberia is going to deal with this.

And it is not the "oinly" business value to the three European carriers to attack LH (AUA, SWISS, Brussels, LOT, BD, Dolomiti, LH Italia) and AF/KLM, but they are/were/have been in urgent need of a partner not to lose more ground on the continent. If you go back in the past, BA once had the dream to establish a carrier in the heart of Europe, Deutsche BA (today part of AB). However, BA's management was never, has never been and will obviously never be able to operate an airline profitable, so this ended in a disaster.