While I'm sure that some Brazilians may be upset at losing direct Star Alliance flights to Frankfurt, Munich, Lisbon, Zurich etc., Oneworld offers the single most important destination for BUSINESS travelers: London.

While I travel much more for leisure than business, there is just much more opportunity to have cooperation between airlines that fly to global powerhouse cities.

Sure from a mileage accrual/redemption, award availability, fuel surcharge and airline variation perspective, it may not be positive, but LATAM is trying to be a profitable business, so I can't blame them for it.

Europe (London) and the powerhouse of South America (Sao Paulo) together just makes sense. Add to that the powerhouse cities of (New York, LA and Chicago) in the US and then (Hong Kong and Tokyo) in Asia, it seems only fitting that LATAM join Oneworld. While I admit that Oneworld needs to focus on the up-and-coming powerhouse cities in China, having direct flights to secondary cities just doesn't cut it. And frankly Star Alliance's cities in Europe (and many in the US) are unfortunately, secondary.