Don't overlook the possibility of defections from *A and ST, which OW isn't also immune too. We have seen several events so far:

Canadian Airlines was originally a founding member of OW, but was later bought out by Air Canada, a *A member.

Aer Lingus was also a former OW member, but broke off relations "to pursue a low-cost carrier model." But then we're seeing them codesharing with UA so...?

Yet, *A is notorious for putting burdens upon smaller airlines and is much less decentralized compared to OW. A prime example of this was seen with Mexicana who was formerly *A. They utilized the loophole of not renewing codeshare agreements with UA to be purposely kicked out of *A which they then began to slowly re-align their codeshares to OW carriers.

CO's realignment to join *A came out of the result of a big merger between DL and NW - they didn't see a benefit of being the lone US carrier. They were first approached by UA on a merger deal which collapsed. BA and AA then tried to woo them in to OW, but UA came knocking again with a deal to join *A. With CO and AA sharing many similar routes, it was apparent that CO would join *A.

In this day in age of rising fuel prices, anything can happen. So who knows?


My best bet for OW:
AS - definitely a must to strengthen US West Coast routes.
Carriers from BRICs nations - They will be the nations that lead the 21st century, and OW has a serious lack of carrier presence on all four nations.
Ethiopian Airlines - OW needs to strengthen Africa. Out of all the airlines, Ethiopian is the most stable and profitable which reflects OW's philosophy. If not OW, the others might bring them in.
Carrier(s) from SE Asia - Another hole that OW has compared to *A which has TG and SQ
woo more carriers in Europe - How about a Greek airline? OA hasn't joined any alliances yet.