Airline alliance changes and the how to get to travel advice

In the series of posts of how to get to every country and many places, I give the airlines flying to each country within each major alliance (Star Alliance, Sky Team and Oneworld), as well as some selected non-alliance airlines.

There are a number of upcoming changes to airline alliances.

Continental leaves Sky Team 24 October 2009 and joins Star Alliance 27 October 2009.
Copa leaves Sky Team 24 October 2009.
Mexicana joins One World 10 November 2009.
Brussels Airlines joins Star Alliance on a date yet to be confirmed (25 October turned out to be a rumour).

With over 100 posts in the series, and growing every week, I'm reluctant to edit the posts every time an airline leaves or joins an alliance. Since there are a number of changes coming I'll update for all the changes at once on each post. In some cases the tips for affordable travel will change (eg Guam is more easily accessed on Star Alliance around the world when Continental joins Star Alliance). Where the advice given needs to change I propose replacing the original post with a new one.

I have a crazy travel schedule coming up so this update process may take a short while to complete. Thanks for your patience in the meantime.