Originally Posted by
jinglish
While I would like to see AS join OW for the reciprocal elite benefits, I disagree that it was obvious and that it's only a matter of time before another OW carrier becomes a partner (unless they do actually join). JL, the only other recent OW-aligned addition, flies to LAX, SFO, and SAN, all airports where AS has significant presence (particularly since the VX acquisition), as well as YVR. AY is only just not launching seasonal, thrice-weekly SFO service. And S7, UL, and MH don't even fly anywhere in North America.
+1
AS has added lots of partners over the last few years (both oneworld members and not), but it's generally been around the time the new partner introduces or expands service to an AS hub. AS doesn't have any partners which don't serve at least one of AS's hubs, and I don't see any reason to see that changing. With AS's award limitations (particularly the inability to combine multiple partners on one award) and the focus on getting passengers from North America to other parts of the world with awards, adding a partner which doesn't serve an AS hub doesn't make much sense. And it also doesn't make obvious sense from the partner's point of view: why would MH (for example) care about adding AS as a partner when AS doesn't help feed any of MH's flights?
IB is the oneworld partner whose absence from AS's partner list is most glaring, particularly given their corporate ties to BA and joint venture ties to AA. But again, they have quite limited service to the west coast; from Wikipedia, it looks like they do have seasonal LAX service. But AS (even with VX) doesn't offer much feed out of LAX that their joint venture partner AA doesn't offer, so it's not clear to me that they have much incentive to route feed from a partner where they share all revenue (AA) to one where they don't (AS). AY is a bit different now because AS/VX does provide significant SFO feed that AA can't provide.
Adding two oneworld members as partners combined with the loss of DL does, I would think, at least increase the probability that AS joins oneworld (at which point they would become partners with all oneworld members). But an increase in probability doesn't make it likely.