Hello again OW subsection. I'm currently doing some research for a project and thought I'd come to the gurus for a few questions about the enrollment of new members in the OW alliance.

Let's assume that the new airline is coming in under a full codesharing agreement with AA and other OW members. Furthermore, the two will allow profit sharing on certain flights. (If the latter only occurs within an ATI, please let me know this!)

From what I can tell, the process is as follows:

1. New airline is courted to join
2. Member airline sponsors the new airline's application to join OW
3. Alliance approves their entrance
4. (Uncertain) Sponsoring airline's government DOT approves (USDOT for AA) *
5. (Not certain is always happens) New airline's government approves alliance
6. Codeshare and profit sharing begin

Next steps would be opening inventory to the Global Oneworld Inventory System so that OW partners fliers can book on the new airline. Does anyone know how this is done? Does anyone know what system OW uses for a global inventory system, if at all? I'm assuming there is something considering you can go to oneworld.com and book a RTW ticket based on live inventory, not to mention being able to book codeshare flights on AA.com for OW partners.

Also, does anyone know how AA handles profit sharing? It costs money to repatriate funds, so I'm curious to know if they do anything to avoid that.

Any help is... well, helpful.

Thanks guys. I might have follow up questions/edits to this post.