Originally Posted by DC-USCP-UAPE
(1) I don't know what the requirements are to be in the *A club, and bmi as a low cost airline seems to be in, but it could be that US is starting to violate some of those tenants or thresholds;
Spanair is barely a mainline carrier, yet is part of *. I wouldn't worry too much about it at this point.
Also, it's often noted that * and ST have more positive public recognition precisely because they have multiple North American members (versus OW, where AA is the only NA carrier).