Thats news I also heard.
Oneworld is working well for everybody involved, but BA and AA. For them, being the key players in the alliance it has not achieved what an Airline Alliance is about to achieve: to attract new customers, to penetrate new markets and to achieve economies of scale.
Why is obvious.
1. British politics are just not able to give into the Americans and without Open Skies comes no Antitrust. And without it AA and BA makes no sense at all.
2. BA made a mistake by even considering having the Northwest/KLM AA threat in the boat. American has truly realised by that and a lot of operational problems, especially at Heathrow, that BA is not as comitted as they should be. The same is valid for the AA liaison with SR.
Oneworld is not going to die, because the problem are BA and AA. On both continents Oneworld is still in a good position to find another partner. And as I heard it, BA is the one having the real pressure here. They bring a global network connecting Europe and they have Quantas. But isnt Quantas on the other hand the reason why Oneworlds problems in Asia are that severe? And isnt BA the problem for Oneworld not gaining additional marketshare on the important Atlantic routes?
And thats the rumour: Onworld kicking BA out, getting an Aviation company like SAir into the boat to play Europe (and be real guys, with Sabena, Swissair and Air Portugal the access to Europe will be superb - and real competition would be back on the Atlantic. Swissair showed earlier with Delta and SIA what good alliance partners they are). Also they would bring SA and with it access to South Africa. Comitted to buy a share in Thai they would also help Oneworld to weaken Star in South East Asia.
And still there are other airlines in Asia looking for strategic partners.
Conclusion: Its balltime and AA is doing what they are best in. They put pressure into the game and they will either force BA to commit or they will force them to leave Oneworld. One way or the other, just another kick back for BA. I am strongly convinced that BA does today not have a real strategy what to do and where to be in three years from now. And this is very, very sad...