Local press saying that an announce may be imminent.

I've been reading that TAM will be joining at the end of March, 2013....

Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but how can TAM rejoin oneworld if they were never a part of oneworld to begin with.

TAM was an AAdvantage partner for many years, but never a member of oneworld. As far as I know. no Brazilian airline has even been in oneworld, although VARIG was one of the early members of Star Alliance. GOL, which bought the remnants of VARIG and has planes with the VARIG logo on the outside, was an AAdvantage partner until recently. It is now aligned with DELTA.

I suspect the OP is a native user of a Romance language. In French, for example, we use the verb "rejoindre" to say something like "TAM will join oneworld" (TAM va rejoindre l'alliance oneworld).

Ah, I understand, I apologize then if I came off a bit harsh.

I didn't hear it that way - in fact, my first reading made me ask the same question you did. A learning point for all.

That was my first impression, too. OP's name ("billez") sounds very French to me. Of course, only the OP can confirm that.

Gentlemen, ladies,
I made a mistake. My apologies. I was actually going to write: "Tam will be joining Oneworld soon" and mistook its early partnership with AA for Oneworld membership and hence the wrong title. It does appear in any case that an announcement will be forthcoming soon however it is unclear what the timing for actually joining may be. WSJ also reporting that AA may be seeking a BA type alliance with LAN.

I caught the end of the oneworld website being down for "updates" a couple of days ago (after this thread was posted), but didn't notice anything new when it came back up... maybe setting something up to activate at a set time?
I'm not sure they'd get that. How much non oneworld competition is there on North-South America travel? It seems that AA/LA controls a lot more of the North-South America market then the oneworld North Atlantic traffic.

I agree likewise. AA is definitely the strongest airline into South America that isn't based in SA. Likewise, I'd think IB (even with the recent MAD-MVD cut) is likely the strongest airline from Europe to SA. That was why I personally was thinking there could be truth to LA/JJ possibly trying to get into *A, where they might be able to get more traffic to come onto their metal. However, the AV/TA move to *A would have lessened any potential for that (as well as CM becoming much more integrated, despite being all narrowbodies, PTY seems like a very convenient place for connecting from NA to SA), and ignoring the court ruling that LA/JJ could not join the same alliance as AV/TA. Good to add JJ, will be a big help (even though their award inventory is stingy) for getting to/from Brazil.

There is this WSJ article from Thursday:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...365716034.html

The linked article is behind a pay-wall. Despite subscribing to the daily print paper, I can't see the online content.

Does FT's TOS permit someone to post the article's content?

Seemed like just yesterday that they joined Star Alliance doesn't it?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...365716034.html

If not, go to Google, search 'tam airlines' under the news tab and its the fourth one down. Opened fine for me.