Do you have to pay for IFE on the other two? As you said, they are not total LCC.

Intra-Africa sucks from a *OWE* standpoint as you are logistically only able to visit one country in Africa unless you choose South Africa, which then allows MN to Zimbabwe/Zambia/Namibia/Mauritius.

Not really sure what carriers OW would look at for expansion though

Kenya Airways (KQ) would be a good choice but they're Skyteam.
Ethiopian (ET) is another good option, but they're set to join *A.
Air Nigeria (VK) is okay, not as good as KQ and ET, but it's alliance free. It was started as Virgin Nigeria but Virgin Group now has a minority stake in it (49%). Still does't seem that likely a choice.
@:-)I was excited at first to see that Eagle Air (H7) connects many BA destinations but then I noticed that they mostly fly 19 seater Turbolets (and that's as big as they go) and they even fly a 4 seater Cessna 206! Don't see this happening then...

Air Zimbabwe (UM) seems the best choice as a relatively large airline connecting many BA destinations.

The reality? I don't think there are any airlines in Africa that are both large enough and unaffiliated with Skyteam or *A. Royal Air Maroc or Tunisair might be nice...but they are in "Europe and the Middle East," so aren't really useful when it comes to the issue of *OWE*

You could but it's effectively CX and operates at the same hub. If you want to get from Beijing to Shanghai, hubbing through either HKG or NRT effectively excludes OW from your decision.

Yes. Key routes without any OW presence at the moment:

Beijing - Shanghai

Beijing- Seoul

Shanghai - Seoul

At least one can still gather CX Asia Miles with several Chinese carriers but alas no status miles.

Lure CA~

Retain LAN is the big priority in my view because if they get LAN, TAM will most likely come and to snag an airline like TAM in a very large growing economy in Brazil will be key for OW.

Retaining LA is the the biggest priority for 2012. Losing LATAM combined with a potential lose of MX would spell disaster for OW in Latin America. What pisses me off is that AA/OW sat on the sidelines again when 30% of LA's shares where up for sale.

There are gaps in the USA. Try to fly around the Southeast. DL and US have comprehensive hubs in ATL and CLT, respectivly while you can't get from say CHS to ATL without going through MIA or CAE to anywhere without going through DFW.

I would love to see US and the CLT hub come on-board.

Need service between Asia and S.E. US. CX could easily extend its new ORD service to MIA (also an OW hub), similar to the HKG/YVR/JFK service. There's apparently sufficient S.E. US demand to Asia to support widebody service ATL/ICN 9x/week on KE. Additionally (being completely selfish), BOS/HKG nonstop would be nice.

Foreign Airlines are not allowed to operate Revenue Earning US Domestic flights YVR-JFK is International. Also you would have the added inconvenince of Immigration and Customs at Inital point of US arrival and as we all know this can be from 20 Mins to 2 Hours therefore totally impracticable for an Airline to schedule.

to solve the problem of not having Oneworld presense on these routes:
Beijing - Shanghai
Beijing- Seoul
Shanghai - Seoul

i think Oneworld can do this:
CX increase shares on CA -> persuade CA to switch to Oneworld (CX as sponsor) using shareholder's identity

I was thinking no local traffic ORD/MIA (MIA has C&I facilities), thus no problem with intra-US revenue segments, and no deplaning at ORD for C&I.

Agreed OW is WAY too conservative on this type of stuff. Though I think OW will get lucky and LAN will stay though this should have never happened if OW was smart. You would think the JAL less would have taught them something.

Dragonair codeshares on Air China flights within China and between China and Korea would be enough, if eligible for OW status miles.

It's the opposite way around. CA is majority shareholder in CX.