I'm just trying to understand this sentiment...why would AB leaving the alliance be a good thing? Fine, people hate AB, but what negative impact do they have on our ability to use and enjoy the alliance? Surely the more option to earn and spend miles and to redeem at least some of my elite benefits to more destinations the better?

But maybe I am missing something...UNLESS AB was going to be replaced by someone who filled a real hole in the OW network [most of Africa - and almost all of it if you dont want to pay BA fuel surcharges for redemptions] would be grand.

AB stinks as an airline. If they leave it will hopefully open the door to another airline to join (possibly defecting from *A or that other alliance no one cares about). Clearly AB is better than nothing (marginally so), but a replacement is probably welcomed.

Who would you suggest would/could leave *A that would be A) better than AB and B) fill a OW hole in Europe?

SAS or TAP would be redundant. Aegean and Adria would be pointless. The others are part of LH group. So, would LOT really be that much better than AB?

yes Berlin thx!!

yeah people here do not seem to realize there is no alternative to AB

Yes, you do have a point there. I had momentarily forgotten that LH owns most of *A in Europe!

The sad part about that is Swiss was to join OW back in 2003, but had a falling out with BA.

Why can't an airline be a member of more than one alliance? Seems like it would be good for that airline and for passengers in the alliances.

Forgot to post this before. Visual representation of Etihad's interests. Taken at World Routes 2014:

That can't be a complete list of partners. They parter with AA but that isn't shown.

I don't think they are meant to represent the partners airlines as in "earning miles."

I believe it represents all the airlines in which they have money invested. Own shares.

Right, those are all airlines in which EY has an ownership stake.

Maybe they'll just buy their own alliance.

and OW is doing the same thing, by going down the path of having fewer members they basically are slowly becoming an alliance of airline groups...
expanding by purchasing other carriers or adding members that could purchase other carriers or will eventually merge into each other...

IAG- Finnair will likely join and Aer Lingus
AA
CX group- JL was happy to be sold off to CX during the crisis but CX has a stupid no investing out of China policy...
and the most effective at this for OW
LAN

in actual fact unless the alliance starts selling tickets directly on one site alliances will die and these groupings will be more important
LH group in star

they need to launch an airline called OW who will have their code on every OW flights all sold off the same website etc ( of course the airline will be virtual)

It will be interesting see if Etihad really forms a fourth alliance. I think they do. It will just take a bit of time and then this would mean that Alitalia leaves Skyteam, SAA Star Alliance and AB Oneworld sooner or later.

Alitalia would also be kicked out of the immunized transatlantic joint ventures with Delta/Air France-KLM/Czech/Korean and Delta/Virgin Atlantic/Air France-KLM, and probably also from the extensive codeshare agreements with AF/KL.

I would imagine that these provide a fair bit of revenue to AZ that EY would have to replace somehow.