Setback for Star Alliance, the Lufthansa led aviation trust: Brazilian Airline TAM leaves the Group and joins the competition
Club OneWorld initiated by British Airways. TAM will join OneWorld early next year, the airline announced on Thursday.

Background of the step is the acquisition of the Brazilian market leader through LAN Chile last year - LAN was previously a member of OneWorld. The retreat for Lufthansa, which thus lose an important partner on the routes to South America, may be painful.

According to aviation experts, however the German carrier is said to form a code share agreement with TAM in spite of OneWorld membership, to jointly market flights. OneWorld allows such cooperation also with non-Alliance members. TAM is not the only prominent access for OneWorld.

Qatar Airways will also close the Alliance. "We are the conditions for which enters in October meet", Qatar CEO Akbar Al Baker at the tourism fair ITB in Berlin said. Within the airline clubs, there is close cooperation with connecting flights, frequent flyer programs, the use of lounges at airports and the harmonisation of timetables.

In addition to Star Alliance and OneWorld, including Air Berlin, British Airways and the Australian Qantas belong to the sky team is the third major aviation Alliance.

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Roland Wildberg is Travel Writer and Correspondent based in Berlin, Germany. He started as an Editor for the National daily 'Die Welt' (tourism section), later on switched to a freelanced career and nowadays mainly publishes on the Web. Observing the hospitality industry always has fascinated him as it looks like the perfect combination of sleeping and writing – work-live-balance as its best.

Roland also heads the annual 4Hoteliers ITB Berlin news micro-site journalist and video/photo teams for the 5th consecutive years.