Star Alliance and Skyteam seem to be expanding their networks with relavnt airlines... OW is wonderfu, but why are they not snatching up partners that matter?

S7 is a nice airline, but that doesnt give us the options STAR has....

Take NY to TLV for eg: Star offers direct on Continental, and U.S. and their european connections are economical and comfortable.

SKY offers great direct on Delta and brilliant Euro connections

AA used to have codeshare with ELAL but it was dropped, meaning u can accumulate miles but not elite.

Is anything changing?

What's the obsession the El Al?

They won't join OW and unlikely to join any other alliance.

why do you suppose they wont join?

Politics. Nobody wants alliances to be seen as political.

Also what does El Al bring to OW?

Customers for TLV don't have many options from U.S.
You can hop on a BA flight from London, but the competition flies direct.

I don't mean El Al and the TLV market specifically. In general, OW seems to not be keeping up with the competition.

Particularly for AA customers in the U.S.

Sorry to break it to you but TLV is far from being the centre of the universe.

not so,

AA themselves wish to fly there but have issues following their TWA takeover.

and, geographically, TLV is the center of the globe!

With so many fully booked NY-TLV flights from the competition daily, OW is losing out.

Don't mix your political/religious views with bizness

I see four oneworld options between New York and Tel Aviv.

The best by far is BA via a smooth connection through LHR's new T5, though I can understand why this might not be your preferred option as an AAdvantage member (but oneworld is far, far more than just AA - thankfully!).

Second-best option is flying Iberia through Madrid, which offers a fairly smooth connection but only an A320 on the leg to TLV.

Then there's the option of AA to Heathrow, connecting to BA, though this involves changing terminals, which is a bit of a hassle.

Finally, you can fly Royal Jordanian nonstop from New York to Amman, connecting to the short hop to TLV.

Hi Alex,

There are a number of options, but they are not direct from the US

Additionally, to accumulate full miles one would have to up the booking class

So... What you want to do is fly AA so you can buy a cheap discounted coach fare which earns full miles right with all applicable elite bonuses?

FWIW, airlines don't make money off heavily discounted coach fares.

Not on my map!

There are lots of routes all of us would like to have, but the economics need to make sense which is something I think you have not considered.

I am not - I'm just stating facts. None of the airlines or alliances want to mix the two which is a big reason why El Al is not likely to join a big alliance in the near future.

And I thought this was going to be an in-depth thread about the many travails facing OW:

- imminent bankruptcy of JAL, its second largest carrier, its likely move to Skyteam and resulting gaps in coverage in North Asia
- coverage gaps in South East Asia, Africa
- absence of a compelling hub in Central Europe
- limited non-aligned carriers available to fill gaps
- difficulty in obtaining approval for trans-Atlantic ATI for five of its members
- appearing to be left behind in the race against the other two alliances

A point anywhere on the surface of a globe cannot be its centre. They are all peripheral.

Depends on what you mean by options. While oneworld has less destinations (although more airlines, if you include full and affiliates than sky team, according to wikipedia), it has greater world coverage, covering all continents, whereas the other 2 do not cover australian destinations.

Alliances are really there for serving passengers beyond the airline's home market, but effectively keeps the revenue "within the family".

I'm sure you can pick lots of random airport points to prove or disprove a range of direct flights - what about LAX-BNE, which alliances fly this route directly? Or SFO-SYD? LAX-AKL? SYD-SCL? EZE-SYD?

So did I until I read the OP's previous posts which made it obvious what he/she was wanting to discuss.

Add to this ST's almost complete lack of South American service.

However, over the next 10 years or so, frankly a large presence in Australia and South America, will be largely overshadowed by the growth in Asian traffic IMHO. For OW to have no presence in the so called "golden triangle" China/Korea/Japan is of serious concern.

OW needs to bed down Jet in India as fast as possible and even more importantly find a Chinese partner - or it will become what SkyTeam was a few years back.

Africa is, as we all know a concern, and here Arik may be an option - now linking London, New York and Johannesburg through its hub in Lagos. Someone also mentioned the improvements being made by TAAG and they would link Europe, South America and Johannesburg.

Then the middle east. While RJ is a great airline, they either need to increase their global visibility or OW need to look at an additional Middle Eastern carrier. I see that QR has extensive code-sharing with *A, so maybe EY, already code-sharing with AA.

Just my thoughts - YMMV

I am surprised OW hasn't courted an indian, chinese and a SE asian carrier, eg Malaysian, along with an african carrier (not sure there are any candidates?).

Not sure about the comment regarding the "need for a compelling hub in central europe". There's Malev with Budapest which provides a european hub, or do you mean BUD being an inter-continential hub? I'd suggest that there aren't many large cities in central europe that justify being an inter-continential hub.