Just a week after Aer Lingus was whetting its appetite at the prospect of being a player in the largest global airline alliance and raising much-needed investment cash from a share-buying public encouraged by its foray into equities with Telecom, the whole edifice appears to have been undermined.

News that the British Airways/American Airlines Oneworld project will - for the moment at least - be con fined to a significantly more limited alliance than that concluded by many of its rivals is hardly what the Irish carrier hoped to hear as it seeks to participate in the link-up.

The alliance appears to have fallen victim to the failure of the British and US governments to agree an aviation accord. The US had made agreement on such an accord a precondition for approval of the Oneworld alliance.

While Oneworld will not now be able to achieve the level of co-operation of rival alliances, Aer Lingus is insisting that its plans remain on track and that the latest developments will only affect the relationship between BA and AA.

But what are passengers to make of it all? One of the more interesting comments on the much-touted benefits to the consumer of such groupings came from David Learmont, operations editor of the specialist Flight magazine.

He said: "Airline alliances are part of the new world of commercial air transport. They are not about helping the customer, although they say they are. They are about protecting the member airlines from spiralling competition in an increasingly deregulated marketplace."

His scepticism is commendable. More importantly for Aer Lingus, it seems that his analysis of the true importance of such alliances for airlines, especially small players on the world stage such as Aer Lingus, is likely to prove perceptive. Aer Lingus needs such a deal more than any such deal needs Aer Lingus.