Originally Posted by
scnzzz
What's interesting in this whole joint venture with EY idea is that EY is in direct competition with QR for connecting traffic, particularly to South Asia ex-US. I can imagine AAB not being terribly happy with AA routing traffic through AUH rather than DOH.
That may be true to some extent, but despite their marketing agreement (which is all oneworld is), AA and QR are competitors, just like any two airlines that don't have antitrust immunity. There are increasingly many cases in the airline industry in which two airlines are competitors on some routes or in some cases but cooperate in other ways.
Remember that QF dropped their joint venture with BA in order to form one with EK, yet QF remains in oneworld and is expanding their joint venture with AA. Meanwhile, if AA does form a joint venture with EY (or QR for that matter), they'll be competing with EK and, by extension, QF -- their joint venture partner.
Similarly, CX has a partnership with NZ, in direct competition with alliance partner QF. (And also in competition with NZ's alliance partner SQ, even though SQ and NZ each have ownership stakes in and joint ventures with VA.)
Airline partnerships are necessarily a tangled web that really can't be boiled down to three global alliances in which alliance members cooperate with each other and compete with everyone else. I just don't see QR's oneworld membership as a real obstacle to AA forming a closer partnership or joint venture with EY. (As others have suggested, it's not impossible that QR would join such a partnership anyway.)