http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4901552/
http://www.flightglobal.com/article...to-forge-new-alliance-with-three-initial.html[FONT=ARIAL,]Surprising but true: Israel's leading newspaper publishes today that LY is working on founding a 4th global airline alliance to compete with Star, OneWorld and Skyteam. The new alliance will be called "We", and the final agreement is to be signed within the next 90 days.
Apparently, after unsuccesful attempts to get into one of the exiting alliances, LY decided to found a new airline alliance comprising of medium and small sized airlines that otherwise would probably not find themselves in an alliance. The newspaper reports that LY has already signed a memorandum of understanding with VV, U8 and UT, and plan to incorporate some 20 airlines in the alliance within a year, including european and south american airlines, with which LY is currently negotiating.
The article was confirmed by LY and the Israeli ministry of transportation (unfortunately, a link in the english language is yet to be found).[/FONT]
El Al plans to forge new alliance with three initial partners
By Arie Egozi
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Israeli flag-carrier El Al is initiating formation of a new aviation alliance after abandoning attempts to join one of the three main ones.
Air Transport Intelligence has learned that El Al already has the approval of three airlines to join: Russia's UTAir, Ukraine's AeroSvit and Armenian carrier Armavia.
The airlines have signed a letter of intent to form the alliance - to be called 'Eastern-Western' - and the participants plan to sign a final agreement within the next 90 days.
Israeli sources familiar with the situation say that efforts will be made to persuade a total of 20 airlines to join the new alliance by the end of 2011.
While El Al's policy of not flying on the holy Sabbath, plus its special security arrangements, have been cited for the airline's non-inclusion in the three major alliances, Israeli senior sources state that the main reason is diplomatic.
Neither El Al, nor any of the three would-be alliance members, could immediately be reached for comment.
Earlier this year, El Al declared that it would "dramatically" increase the number of codeshare agreements it had with foreign airlines, as a substitute for membership in the main alliances.
But this effort has had limited success owing to problems with the Israeli anti-trust authorities.