Some has to do with Swiss in particular and some doesn't. First, I just don't think Oneworld needs Swiss to be successful. A vast majority of their routes are redundant routes and there is a gaping hole that Swiss just isn't going to fill. Without getting into the semantics of where Europe begins and ends, you have four Oneworld airlines in Europe. British Airways, Aer Lingus, Finnair, and Iberia. To put it into perspective, Oneworld has the same number of airlines covering Europe than it has covering the rest of the world. Oneworld missed the boat with LOT and the airline would have begun to plug the Eastern European hole. Most of Eastern Europe is going to be admitted in about 10 months to the European Union and the rest will be admitted a year later. This is a big deal and will increase traffic exponentially. For Oneworld not to take advantage of this is sad. Finnair can cover the baltics and some of the north continent, but Oneworld is empty in the mid and south continent.

Second, Swiss screwed up. What they did with Sabena, et al. was incredibly risky and they got burned so hard that the airline doesn't even exist anymore. The airline is fiscally fragile at this point and maybe a month ago cut lots of jobs and lots of routes and the company said that without financing that the company would go under....again. People began to seriously doubt the value of the Star Alliance when Ansett went under. Doubts came up again when UAL declared BK. Announcements like this are not good for an alliance and Swiss could potentially do more damage than it is worth. Airlines have been openly investing in each other to spread the risk and to keep the markets alive, but I have never heard of any airline being willing to float Swiss any capital. Makes you wonder why.

Finally, I believe that Swiss made their bed and should lie in it. I am not as forgiving as some and regard the company as extraordinarily arrogant for just believing that the world should forget so easily. For some reason, many regard the company as beyond reproach but I disagree. I feel that the weaknesses of the company (and any company for that matter) should be fully considered before making any sort of major financial decision like this.

And for what it's worth, I have had this opinion for a very long time.