Originally Posted by
ndhapple
Where exactly is OneWorld bare? Qantas for Australia. Cathay Pacific and JAL for East Asia. BA and Iberia for Europe and Africa. LAN and Mexicana for Central and South America.
certainly JAL, Cathay, and Qantas offer pacific/asia coverage that's first rate, and AA, LAN and Mexicana offer similar for Latin America. Africa and Mideast coverage are supplemented by Royal Jordanian and AA's codeshares with SN (who are not a oneworld member).
where oneworld comes across as somewhat bare compared to * is continental Europe. oneworld lacks, at present, a high-capacity/high-efficiency hub for Europe access. There aren't a ton of flights to IB's hub at MAD, and while there is a lot of LHR service, it can't be considered a high-efficiency choice for connectors (at least until the mess at LHR T5 is sorted). The other current european members are Malev and Finnair, both relatively small. CO's relative success at direct flights to "secondary" European cities would significantly augment overall access for the alliance.