555, in order to 'share the pie' an airline is required to be part of one of the alliances? When was it determined that these alliances were sole servers of 'the pie'?
It is this idea that the legacy carriers have some 'right' to the travelling public and that the rest of the world must conform to their established structure I find hard to accept.
At any rate, despite the struggles of the west and especially Europe, much of the rest of the developing world has growing passenger numbers and the likes of AC and LH couldn't handle it all by themselves. Since Canada wants to engage more economically with some of these regions, increased transportation links are inevitable.
You know what, when it does happen, it won't kill AC contrary to the chicken littles out there. If AC goes the way of the Dodo, it will be mostly their own doing. Hopefully they get their s**t sorted out.