Very interesting.

Referring back to the latest traffic figures for AB, that means that the 300k alliance passengers represents less than 1% of AB's passengers so far this year - and granted, oneworld wasn't a factor for the first 3 months of the year. At this rate, we could perhaps expect about 1.5% of AB's traffic in 2012 to have been generated by oneworld transfers.

That said, AB's traffic for the year to date is down over 5%. So the "new" alliance traffic, even if it were doubled, still won't cover their downturn in passengers for the year.

It would be very interesting to know how many passengers are being funneled between Etihad and Air Berlin - I can't imagine that it's (much) less than those being funneled between oneworld and AB. And with the other oneworld airlines probably taking a cautious approach to AB, and with no planned major extensions of other oneworld carriers into BER or DUS, one wonders if the oneworld feed will increase all that much in the short term.

I could, under those circumstances, see Etihad being ruthless, and pulling AB out of oneworld especially if there is no realistic expectation of that trickle of passengers turning into a flood.

EDIT: without having seen a source for the 300k number, I just realised I have no idea how "old" this number is, and the assumption I made that this is right up to the present, i.e. covering the first full 6 months of alliance membership, may be incorrect. As a result, the actual number, and therefore percentage, of passengers coming from the alliance may indeed by higher by many times. Again, if you could provide a source for the 300k figure, I'd be most grateful.