Originally Posted by
phillystudent
Out of curiousity, and since you guys seem to know a lot more about this than I do, what would be the incentive for an airline to refrain from joining one of the alliances? I know that joining one would probably reduce their ability to work with other airlines outside the alliance, but wouldn't they make up due to (conceivably) much higher volumes?
Right, not joining an alliance allows them to work with everyone. As long as there is no other competition that is part of another alliance, 9W basically has the entire international FF market.
If IT or AI join an alliance, then suddenly 9W can't work with their alliance partners. That will make it more advantageous to be an alliance member. As long as everyone in India is unaligned, alliance membership without a ATI/JV type agreement would not be particularly better for 9W.