In the latest version, it appears that one can travel surface between SWP and either NA or SA. I guess this means you could go from Papeete to Easter Island on a separate ticket and pick up your xONEx again.

TRAVEL MUST BE VIA THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC
86N . OCEANS. ONLY 1 CROSSING OF EACH OCEAN IS
87N . PERMITTED. TRANSOCEANIC SURFACE IS NOT PERMITTED.
88N . EXCEPTION: FOR TRAVEL ORIGINATING IN THE SWP, ONE
89N . TRANSOCEANIC SURFACE SECTOR IS PERMITTED.

Isn't the problem that you can go from Easter Island to Papeete on LAN, but you can't get out from Papeete? In this case it is the Papeete to Aus/NZ ticket that you need to get separately before picking up the OWE again. (Or the same the other way round)

Yes, you're absolutely right. Ignore my ramblings. Still can't see any practical application of a trans-oceanic surface sector, but I guess there must be one for the rule to be added.

Not if PPT is part of SWP as reported on the other thread -- then IPC-PPT is the transoceanic segment, and you can open-jaw from PPT to anywhere else in the SWP. I too thought this was the reason for the rule, but that only makes sense if PPT is within SA and not SWP. The only rationale I can think of is to provide a "southern hemisphere only" RTW without crossing the equator (in which case the surface oceanic segment is across the Atlantic) -- making possible an xONE3 originating in Australia/SWP.

as a former SWP based travel agent I can tell you that we used to get a reasonable number of older pax who wanted to do a cruise from America/Caribbean to Europe as part of their RTW itinerary - technically they could not do this because of the no intercontinental surface sector rule - now it will be possible . not a huge market admittedly - but one that up to now OW have not been able to accommodate

The cruise idea makes sense, but it seems that isn't what Oneworld had in mind for the rule change -- otherwise it wouldn't be restricted to SWP origin only! The bulk of such cruise pax would presumably be from US & Europe, not Australia. This particular rule change is intriguing, both that it happened and that it is limited to such a niche market. Presumably the OWE rules are designed to force buying a different (higher) fare if unable to meet the conditions, and using RTW to fly to a cruise appeared to be one of the prohibited activities (and still is, except for SWP). But then SWP has always had better rules than the other points of origin, for whatever reason (hard to believe that QF insisted on better terms than elsewhere in OW).