TAM looking to buy into LAN
 

http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1264800776.html

This can't be a good sign for Oneworld since TAM is now firmly place to enter into *A.

Not a given
 

I guess it does make things interesting, however for example Cathay and Air China I believe own equity shares in each other and they are in competing alliances Oneworld and Star respectively. Although I do see they are both profitable which makes sense, never been on TAM but find LAN a very nice airline to fly.

Based on one return Brazillian TAM domestic a few years ago and a similar LA Chilean domestic a few months ago, I'd say they are both good. Indeed, TAM had a better level of service (its hard to do worse than LA domestic - unless you had to pay for the coffee and that box of chocolate biscuits).

A few years ago I noticed you can redeem TAM points for LAN flights. So they already have some kind of partnership despite their alliances.

So JJ buys LA and LA moves to *A.

I think this is a bit premature.

Of course it is, although OW seems to become the weakest of the three alliances.

That's what people were saying about DL and JL. OW needs to squash this before it becomes an issue down the road.

Except that there is no such entity as OW. OW is simply an agreement between individual airlines. So it's only individual airlines within OW that can do some action (not OW itself).

So exactly which OW airlines should squash this how?

I agree with this... LA has been trying to enter the brazilian market to not avail to set up similar operations as they have in Peru, Ecuador and Argentina... it is much tighter and harder market to get into... CONTINENTAL I believe still has a 10% stake in COPA from Panama and still as ONEPASS as their FF program but is not part of *A rather still remains as an associate SkyT member... so all combinations are possible...

http://www.skyteam.com/about/carriers/copaairlines.html

That's not correct, Copa has exited SkyTeam at the same time as Continental did and is considering future options (likely joining *A). OnePass members can already redeem flights on all *A airlines.

http://www.copaair.com/sites/cc/en/n...n-skyteam.aspx

CO no longer has any ownership stake in CM. That being said, CM still uses OnePass as its FF program and it exists in many ways as bizaro-world CO. CM did follow CO out of SkyTeam and will likely join *A eventually though I do not believe a formal application has been made.
Not true. OneWorld may not be an airline but it is an actual organization dedicated to marketing and promoting the alliance, just like SkyTeam and Star Alliance are organizations. They can coordinate press releases of member parties or even from the organization itself.

Well, a marketing orgaization, whoopee. How exactly is a marketing organization going to "quash this"? From the standpoint of beng able to act to "quash" a member airline from leaving OW, I don't see the difference between OW being a marketing organizaiton and simply being an agreement.

OK, I guess if this marketing organization has "dues" the member airlines have to pay, it could give LAN a break on the "dues"... :)

The newly elected President of Chile, Sebastien Pinera, owns 26.3% of LAN. I read yesterday he intends to sell that majority stake. The likely buyer of some if not all of Pinera's shares is the Cueto Family which holds 25.5%.

TAM is rumored to be in talks to take 19% of LAN using the proceeds from the IPO of their frequent flyer program, Multiplus, to finance part of the possible acquisition.

No word on how any alliances would be impacted.

Is there any limit on foreign ownership of LAN?