I agree that they have sadly been lacking in SE Asian carriers. Malaysian, Thai, etc. would be great addition. A Chinese carrier would be a game-changer. What would they gain with an African carrier? Who would be a viable candidate? Too many risks, IMO.

as said previously in past posts, it all boils down on how invitations/requests for alliance joining are handled. OW has a rather slowly and thoughtful process, while the other two are more gung-ho about new entrants joining, and this is reflected poignantly on the total financial situation of the alliances (ST and * are deep-down red, OW is the almost exact opposite). Perhaps given the current business climate, OW and its thoughtful process will be more enticing to potential suitors, but in any case the alliance has to overhaul drastically it approach in many areas, and the JL saga hopefully is the trigger needed.
For what I know and understood MH was quite advanced in its negotiations with OW (CX was the main sponsor) but at the end they tried again (unsuccessfully it seems) to join ST on the back of their long standing relationship with KLM. Also every some time there is a news story surfacing about combining MH with QF. All in all I think MH will join OW in relatively short time, giving both the relative uninterest of ST and the confirmed accession of GA, and it should not be too difficult wooing them, kinda low hanging ripe fruit for OW to pick.

Is there a some back up data to show it? As far as I know, at least JAL, BA, CX and AA are in red.

"Based on latest 2008 full year results from members of all three alliances, Oneworld members combined lost US$1.7 billion net, against total losses by Star Alliance of US$8.8 billion and SkyTeam's collective US$13.3 billion deficit."

Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneworld

Lan would be one of the most profitable airlines in the world come to think of it, qantas does okay and so does cathay. I guess the big loss maker is JAL in Oneworld. In Star I would imagine quite a few loss makers and would only think SQ, TK, and maybe Lufthansa would be profitable but there might be more in there somewhere floating around with profits but just what I would guess from memory, I am sure someone will go and look up the profits to paint a picture.

Meridiana and Finnair are intensifying their co-operation. Meridiana will start flying directly from Florence to Helsinki some time in the end of March replacing AY Helsinki-Pisa seasonal flights. I think this is the first time there will be a scheduled flight to Finland by an Italian carrier (the only exception was when Volareweb flew a couple of months between Helsinki and Milan)

There are only three airlines in the world with an investment grade credit rating: Southwest, Qantas and Lufthansa. Star Alliance has much higher losses but is also a much larger alliance. Each camp has one of the performance champions so I don't think it is justified to say that OWs performance is so much better than *As. You would also need to look how much one time items effect the results either positively or negatively.

Saw my first ever TAAG plane today taxiing for take-off at Gaurulhos Airport today. Now that would be a real catch for Oneworld -fills in the Southern Atlantic hole with Luanda-Sao Paulo/Rio as well as Southern Africa,West Africa and 5 European ports. Would also add Cabo Verde which I don�t think any Oneworld airline serves.

On second thoughts maybe it would fit in better to Skyteam

AAJFK:

You can fly AA / BA to TLV with no problem. I loved it when TLV was considered to be in EUROPE; LOL. You could fly to TLV from the USA for only 40,000 miles between Oct 15 and May 15. That was the biggest bargain in the sky.

Then when EL AL hooked up they spoilt it by reminding AA that Israel was in the Middle East.

Do AA fly to TLV these days?

Actually, it would be nice to be able to do an Southern Hemisphere Circle. Maybe not with TAAG but maybe when LA offers SCL-JNB. A DONE3 from SWP would become possible. Ahh, I should stop dreaming.

No.

I second the Done3 from SWP, although if they could just change the rules and make the AA flight from DEL-ORD permissable a DONE3 for SWP would be possible. Does that flight even operate still or have AA cancelled it. Imagine the possiblities if Malaysian Joined I for one would like the KUL-JNB-EZE run would be a nice little earner.

FYI.. Looks like it is in the making- http://www.aa.com/viewPromotionDetai...&_locale=en_US

You still can do it for a cheap. The way to do it is to fly to the farthest destination AA considers to be Europe on an award ticket and then book cheap a roundtrip ticket from there to TLV.

Remember, "Europe" can span anywhere between the Canary Islands off the coast of Western Sahara all the way to Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea. A little knowledge in geography and a world map will help you in finding out the farthest distance you can go that fits under the "Europe" definition and the closest one to Israel.

For example, AA considers Turkey and Cyprus to be under Europe ^. Therefore, one can still book an award ticket all the way from the US to IST for 40k miles during off peak season. Then all you have to do is to buy a cheap roundtrip IST-TLV ticket on El Al (and earn AA miles while you're at it). Or, you can book an award ticket to LCA and buy a cheap LCA-TLV roundtrip on Cyprus Airways.

, book an award ticket to ATH and buy your own ATH-TLV, etc. etc. And while you're at it, you can stick in a mini-vacation to those cities and countries in conjunction with a trip to TLV

In China, there are a number of decent but not too large airlines:

- Shenzhen
- Hainan
- Xiamen

I'd prefer to see a number of these in OW instead of CE which is simply one of the worst airlines I've ever flown on. CE is a terrible dent in the OW quality brand - this is an airline that delays planes incessantly with the weakest customer service, an airline on which it is impossible or close to impossible to even get fully refundable tickets refunded, an airline with just about the worst communication standards one can imagine.