this is ridiculous

AFAIK BA/AA have never supported adding OW airlines with subsidiaries at their hubs trying to dethrone them....

DOH is a long way away from LHR...

until HU get rid of HX or CX leaves oneworld , people should stop asking the same tired question

Neither would not stop HU from joining oneworld. At present, HU and CX have same goal of preventing jetstar established in HKG. Plus HU had scaled back from its original proposal for Hong Kong significantly.

The only way HU would join oneworld is to have a clear strategy of its HUB! At this moment, HU is running an airline without a cut edge HUB! Its market share in either PEK and SHANGHAI is laughable and insignificant. For oneworld, HU does not add any value until HU could outline a strategy for oneworld to compete with Skyteam/Staralliance in Chinese corporate travel market. And to do that HU must have a sizeable market share in either Beijing or Shanghai. Currently, HU fell far behind. So HU has no advantage in negotiation with oneworld currently.

Besides that, another problem of HU is to have too many subsidiaries that heavily diluted its parent company. Its original plan to establish Gran China Airlines had failed miserably. It is all in its own making. It had made itself a company that could go bust any time. Just read any Chinese business news you would sense if any company was going to fail in China it would be HU's parent company HNA. I am certain oneworld knows this too.

However, with the new AA establish itself post merger, its codeshare with HU may speed up and we may see some changes in horizon.

1. The "hub" concept doesn't really exist in China. CA might be based in Beijing and MU might be based in SH, but VERY few people use these airports for connecting flights.

2. CX really, really doesn't want HU in OW.

to reply to your point:

1, Air China has a hub in Beijing and China Eastern has a hub (or two in fact) in Shanghai. Both have a sizeable of int-dom transit passengers number, even in Chinese terms. So is China Southern, which has a hub in Guangzhou, a focus city strategy (had the plan for a hub in Beijing but their A380 strategy was damaged by CAAC) in Beijing. You said very few people use these airport for connecting flights, that is not true. Beijing and Shanghai has one of the highest transit passengers number in China. You are confused with the idea of US domestic hub (i.e. Dallas/Denver) and a transportation hub (i.e. Frankfurt/Paris) that has a mixture of int-dom passengers.

2, There is no evidence suggest CX doesn't want HU in oneworld. This has been a fantasy of bloggers for years. But no hard evidence. CX has never said they don't want HU. They may have expressed concerns about HU. There is a big difference between the two.

1. I'll concede that CAN does function as a hub for CZ, though not in the ORD/DEN manner with which most FTers are familiar. And, of course BJ/SH do have the the highest numbers of transit passengers in China because they are the largest markets. That having been said, point-to-point travel is the norm in these parts because connecting is miserable and air fares are typically additive.

2. It's really no secret that Slosar dislikes competition. I don't feel comfortable name dropping in the public forum, but you are welcome to PM me if you desire sources which back up this claim.

thats like saying

there is no HARD evidence for BA saying they do not want Virgin in OW

or AA saying the same to southwest

or QF and Virgin

or Jal and ANA

actually if one has to apply this HARD evidence logic- a lot of ridiculous statements can be made!!

+1

How difficult is it for someone to agree with me?

It is true that there is nothing stopping HU from joining OW. But HX will make it complicated.

Beside - having a common enemy does not mean they can co-exist peacefully. For example, U.S. and U.S.S.R (Russia) during WWII, Cold War, and now.

But there is enough evidence to show CX does not want any competitions in HKG. At the least, CX/KA wants to be the king in HKG.

So HX will be the obstacle for HU to join OW.

Actually, it will be impossible as the U.K. Government, as well as the EU, will not allow it due to competition issue.

While the HX issue is huge, and happens to be a convenient scapegoat for CX, CX wants to be Oneworld's China option, period! In other words, JFK/LHR-XIY should go via HKG, and intra-China travel does not conform with their business objectives. My sources are actually CEOs/MDs of airlines in competing alliances or independent airlines, but they all support Slosar in this case.

However there is the middle east situation with the QF/EK and AB/EY partnerships, while QR is a member.

I agree with the members who think there are practically no chances of HU joining oneworld at the moment. It wouldn't bring a real value to the alliance, Cathay and Dragonair cover quite well the markets oneworld targets.

I'd also like to remind that in the past two years oneworld underwent a major expansion plan with the adding of new airlines, recently at SriLankan's joining ceremony they stated they aren't looking for new members and things will stay quiet for a bit.

you are sometimes fond of your sarcasm, so that makes a little difficult to agree with you, even when you may have plenty of good arguments.
As for CX not wanting competition in their home turf---they are not alone. Just consider the farces that LH and AF/KL in their home bases are putting up to avoid competition from the likes of EK, QR ,EY and TK (aka "the Bosphorus State Airline" according to some LH gonzo :D), including repeated calls to EU antitrust to block these new entrants engulfing in their carefully partitioned continental duopoly.

I have no difficulty at all agreeing with the arguments he has made in this thread. :)

In fact, I'm guessing that even AA would object to HU joining the alliance in light of its recent US expansion (e.g. their J fares on PEK-ORD are 70% less than AA's, and their flight doesn't leave early in the morning).

Sarcasm?? Interesting :D