New Oneworld recruits
 

The Oneworld board meeting is currently underway in Los Angeles. Yesterday it was announced that Mexicana will join the alliance. Are there any chances more airlines will be announced before the end of the meeting? My bets are that Oneworld will offer Jet Airways, S7 and Hainan Airlines (Great Wall) a seat at the table before the end of the year. What about Air Pacific as a Qantas affiliate?

Alaska Airlines
1 Fills in the void left by Canadian Airlines with more direct flights to Canada from the West Coast
2 Partners with AA, BA, CX, and QF


Vietnam Airlines
1 OW's answer to SE Asia
2 Partners with AA, JL, CX, QF


China Eastern
1 OW's answer to China
2 Partners with AA, BA, JL, QF

I don't think 9W is interested in alliances, maybe after IT and AI join.

This plus 9W and life would be really good. :)

Still leaves a big hole in Africa which ET could fill, IMO.

I'd be in favor of letting SN join OneWorld. It would help cover the big hole in Africa.

could fill , but will they ?


http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/...fx4849114.html

Lufthansa, Ethiopian Airlines to enter code-sharing deal

Ok , I know a single codesharing deal does not necessarily mean anything , but since , AFAIK , ET only have two codesharing deals in place and they are both with *A carriers ( SA is the other one ) I dont necessarily see them rushing into OW any time soon

SN for Africa and connections to France would do nicely. And please throw in S7 for those Siberian cities as well, please.

Not that we get a vote, but mine would definitely go for any improvement in Africa coverage. I used to fly SN a lot, back and forth to Freetown and Monrovia mostly. Even better would be ET to eliminate the need for backtracking to Europe.

But it's all just wishful thinking, right?

***

Update: this is really funny. I just searched for the ET site to check their route map, and this is what you get as the "official site" --

http://www.flyethiopian.com

Actually this is their official site. The one you found appears to be an additional domain name that they registered in the 90's.

ET is more closely aligned with *A; you can earn miles on their flights with LH. Also their flights go more to *A hubs (IAD, FRA) than OW.

SN, SN, SN... Even more important than getting people around Africa right now for the alliance is getting people there first. And among the unallied, I don't think there's anyone better than SN right now. I was so gutted at the MX announcement as I had convinced myself that Brussels was going to be the next one in.

Not sure that 2 *A hubs are any more relevant than 2 OW hubs (LON & HKG) when talking about some 50 ET total destinations. (They also fly to CDG & FCO if Skyteam is your cup of tea.)

What are relevant are the great internal African connections and the links to non-African cities such as BKK, DXB, AUH, DEL, BOM, TLV, ARN & BRU as well as the various alliance hubs already mentioned.

In addition to their route network, their service quality is pretty good as well. Personal experience was fine on ABJ - LOS, with a bit of a delay, but normal for Africa. (My luggage was nicked in LOS, which is also normal for LOS, apparently. :mad:)

It's too bad about 9W. I think they'd fit in real well with Oneworld. All 3 alliances right now have gaps with south Asia travel, and 9W is poised really well to fill in those gaps. After all, India is one of the world's fastest aviation markets and an increasingly important business and tourist destination.

I figure that 9W may join one eventually. AI is joining Star and if IT goes the Skyteam route (since they already have some strong codeshare agreements), I think 9W may eventually go with oneworld. Though 9W's codeshare agreements confuse me in that regard, they do have them with both AA and QF. Who knows? It might be possible one day.

Considering JetStar's assault on SGN route, I cannot see QF being happy to further extend any cooperation with VN. Also QF has purchased a stake in VN's competitor further complicating any relationship.

Whilst CX has a good relationship with VN, my bet is that VN will go down the ST path rather than run into the arms of OW.