Mexicana to OW - eventually?
 

Now that Mexicana is an AA program partner, is it only a matter of time before they join OW?

Don't expect to see the OW logo on MX planes anytime soon.

I would rather see OW focus their membership attention on EK and JL. Looking at MX's aircraft(cabins) I see nothing to get excited about.

What, if any, are the standards for OW membership consideration?

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"Rows 50 and above are business seats for those with infants" - gfowler-ord-1k
SkyTeam - "The whatever's leftover Alliance"

well, they let lx in and they are virtualy bankrupt

There's one other thing to look at, IMO - IB is getting flack about MIA as an Americas hub, and MX has strenghtened its relationship not only with AA, but with IB, and helps channel IB pax from MEX and CUN to other Latin American destinations... and they were * alliance.

As to whether that strengthens the MX case fo oneworld membership, ¿quien sabe?

Any recent news on this? Now that MX is partnering with AsiaMiles, seems like something might be back on the table, maybe. Has anyone heard any actual rumours to this effect?

The big impediment to joining an alliance is the need to change systems to meet alliance standards. This costs a lot of money, and was the reason EI left Oneworld -- they faced spending several million Euros to accomodate JL joining OW and had no expectations of getting any JL traffic. Over 95% of Oneworld traffic on EI was connecting from/to AA and BA, so EI decided that bilaterals with AA and BA would give most of the benefit for EI at a much lower cost. MX might be in the same position (they connect mostly with AA and IB). I suspect they also cannot meet the OW qualification requirements, making the financial impact of joining prohibitive in the short run.

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MX is also a partner with several *A FFPs. Why does being a partner with any particular FFP mean the airline is considering joining that alliance?

Why should MX be likely to join OW before Alaska, Air Tahiti Nui, Hawaiian AIrlines, etc, which have been AA partners even longer? (But like MX, Alaska, for example, partners with airlines in other alliances too!)

Also, haven't you heard about Aer LIngus? It's partnering with AA despite (and because) it's leaving OW! That alone should make it obvious that partnerships and OW are two totally separate things!

And btw there are different levels of partnerships. MX is an "ordinary" AA partner, ie, simply "normal" miles earning and redemption. Alaska is a "better" AA partner (and the only non-OW one that I'm aware of at this moment) in that all flights on AS are elite-qualifying!!!

The differing levels of AA partnership is an interesting note. Clearly, AS is well above the rest, but there is also a differentiation between a partner like TAM where you earn and redeem, and a partner like MU where you can only earn, and NOT redeem. It sure would be nice to have the "earn-only" partners like MU, EVA, etc. become "full" partners.

Earn-only means they pay USD to AA (and AA gives them miles). AA likes that. Redeeming requires AA to pay them USD (and they give AA a seat to use for award travel); obviously AA doesn't like that as much. In any case it is AA that decides -- and you see the decision. No reason to expect it to ever change, or to think that any of these airlines will be joining OW in the next decade. It is just a marketing scheme for these airlines (like advertising).

And yet, though in the opposite direction as you discuss, the relationship between AA and TN did change relatively recently, as we now can earn miles on TN instead of simply being able to redeem them.

Likewise, the relationship with Gulf Air changed from simply earning to now earning and redeeming.

While it may just be a marketing scheme, clearly things do change, and I don't find it improbably that an airline like TAM, MX, or someone else couldn't join OW in the next 5-10 years (if not sooner).

Did you even bother to read what I wrote?

I didn't actually explicitly mention AA--my question was provoked by the recent linkage to AsiaMiles of MX. It increases the number of individual linkages within OW to MX, whereas of the other airlines that you mention, both TN, and HA only partner with AA from within OW. I completely agree about AS, who have relationships with many--from recollection AA, BA, QF, LA?--OW members.

As well, I simply asked a question about whether there were any rumours about this because of recent changes and OW's recent 'membership drive'. The attitude is unnecessary.

Not true, QF has codeshares on TN but no FF participation. BA used to have codeshares with HA but I don't think there are any presently (not sure). There are lots of airline relationships outside of alliances, or even across alliances, and some of these are persistent. For example SA and QF codeshare between South Africa and Australia and this was renewed after SA joined Star (for good reasons). Hard to read too much into these agreements, at least in terms of future alliance membership.

QF codeshares with AF. CX codeshares with CA.