Published today in the Peruvian Business Newspaper:

Star Alliance said that it is trying to attract Lan Airlines SA, part of the One World Alliance, because the acquisition of TAM SA by the Chilean airline threatens to eliminate their only south american member. "We believe that Star has a very good proposal" said Jaan Albrecht, executive of the alliance.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-1...h-america.html

I hope to god that OW doesn't sit on the sidelines like they usually do.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Though pairing my current home in Santiago and my real home in Denver wouldn't be a problem with *A, I really, really love OW and would be seriously less enthusiastic about LAN if they jumped ship.

Not very surprising news honestly, but I do hope, as others here, that oneworld and its other members take an active stance in keeping LATAM part of the alliance (as with the JL quandary).

Somebody quick.. write to AA about it. Its usually the lame duck BA, that doesn't do anything about it. They probably think that hey, that's great.. less competition to South America from Europe then!

I would be somewhat surprised if this happens. With Avianca-TACA joining Star, LATAM would end up competing with Avianca's Brazilian operations within the same alliance, and UA, TAP and Spanair surely wouldn't provide as much feed as AA and IB?

It would be a huge shame if it does. Star and Skyteam's upcoming members lists continue to grow, while OW seems to be being left behind.

Cathay also managed to make Hainan's 2007 application to join disappear because they didn't want another OW hub close to HKG.

It's not close, it is HKG. Hainan Airlines is the parent company of HX and UO, that are in direct competition with CX / KA.

I think it is time for All Oneworld Members have to start action to save LAN like the one that saves JL.

I still blame BA for not allowing LX to join. We don't have enough choices for flights to South Africa, & South Asia except with BA which is in honesty, Bloody Awful !

The fact that Star wants LAN is nothing surprising, but I think Star blew its chances by allowing TACA-Avianca in. There's no way LATAM and TACA-Avianca will be in the same alliance. The Central & South American authorities will never allow this because it means no competition from the southern Mexican border to Argentina.

I would not be surprised to read that oneworld wants TAM either. Hopefully Star is making noise, as DL/Skyteam did with JL, while oneworld is working behind the scenes to get TAM in.

TAM and AA were once AAdvantage and code share partners. I think it may be right to say that no airlines that were AA partners ever even seriously considered joining oneworld after the initial experience with AA. At the time TAM left AAdvantage, the commentary in Rio was that AA had shown TAM the door because it didn�t want competition on the routes from Brazil to North America. In particular, TAM was starting up Rio � NY and AA didn�t want anyone at all flying that route, much less an AAdvantage partner, since AA was getting away with putting Rio passengers on its highly lucrative S�o Paulo route. We heard from friends that AA treated TAM as a very junior partner that didn�t know its proper place and was not sufficiently grateful for AA�s grant of AAdvantage membership. TAM also competes with BA from Brazil to London. It might be that LATAM simply isn�t wanted in oneworld. AA would probably prefer to set up direct AA flights from North American to the main cities in South America and not bother with connections to smaller places. BA may well have similar inclinations.

I think *A is famous for its intra-alliance competition policy..

Favours are always given to the "major players - size or service" - UA/CO, LH and its subsidiaries, SQ, NH and perhaps NZ, other members just kept quiet and lie low... Life is hard in *A...

For the sake of OW you'd hope that's the case. If they lost LAN, and with Mexicana almost gone, the only major non-aligned carrier left in Latin America is GOL, who may decide to either stay that way or slot into the SkyTeam arc of DL-AM-AR.

I severely doubt that is true. Neither AA or BA can operate intra-continental routes in Latin American, and both would be at a disadvantage compared to *A airlines due to a lack of feed.