Wings?
 

Anyone know the status of Continental joining the wings alliance?

It seems like a natural fit for them.

They are supposed to but right now they are having a disagreement with KL on how to share transatlantic revenues so its on hold.

Yes the big fight is about the difference between CO's use of EWR as its europe hub rather than sending all of its passengers to AMS for transfers. CO would rather route passengers on a single connection at EWR to major European destinations and KLM wants to have all European passengers routed via AMS. The effect of the NW-KLM alliance is to reduce the number of destinations flown directly by NW. This is evidenced by comparing NW's and CO's number of destinations in Europe directly from their hubs:
NW: AMS, LGW, CDG, FRA
CO: 16 from EWR with more to come.

This will continue to be a sticking point between CO & KLM.

Also see the Wings forum for possible members

BSL

The Euro-hub issue will be a deal-killer for CO in Wings, IMO. CO will lose its competitive edge in NYC if it doesn't offer non-stops. Every national flag carrier is already in JFK, and most major carriers are at EWR too. So much of the NYC-area O&D traffic will fly non-stop if it's available - especially the high-yield business fares. If you ask a business traveler to (a) not have a "first suite"/bed type product, and (b) change in Amsterdam for everyplace other than London & Paris, they will tell you "(c) you later".

I think that KL will have to back down. Every major hub in the USA needs nonstop to LGW/LHR and CDG. DTW needs a non-stop to Germany too - where does Daimler/Chrysler have its HQ?

Then, AMS can be the super-hub for DTW, MEM, MSP and probably CLE. Maybe they can work some compromise on IAH, that lets CO fly direct from IAH to the top 5-10 European destinations and routes everything else thru AMS with 3x or 4x daily service (maybe a 767 in the morning, and 2 777s and 1 767 in the evening). That way, "major" feeder cities (defined as cities that are served by EWR and either IAH or CLE) can either feed to EWR for the CO non-stop, or have more frequent service to a gateway to AMS, and lots of flights to AMS & beyond.