Oneworld celebrates 10th anniversary, unveils various initiatives

"oneworld has made an important contribution in helping our partner airlines endure a tumultuous decade while still achieving the best collective profitability of any alliance.

"Our on-going focus on quality will not waver.  While our combined network is unmatched, our focus has always been on quality rather than quantity, on service rather than size.  This is what makes oneworld stand out as an alliance - and that will not change.

"The decade to come will bring additional challenges, so we're going to work even harder to make sure oneworld creates value for our member airlines and delivers more services and benefits to our customers - hopefully with the benefit later this year of anti-trust immunity between our transatlantic oneworld partners, enabling us to compete on more equal terms with other alliances.

"Today my colleagues and I renewed our commitment for oneworld to further integrate the alliance and all its activities more closely into our own airlines in every area - enabling us to unlock even more of the alliance's potential for all its stakeholders."

In oneworld's first 10 years, it generated USD5 billion of revenues for its member airlines through its alliance fares and sales activities alone.  Interline revenues - from passengers transferring from one member airlines' flights to another's - have reached more than USD16 billion.  Revenues from alliance sales activities have increased by 330% in the decade - while its member airlines' overall passenger revenues have risen by just 100% during the same period. 

They also announced a series of initiatives and alliance firsts to mark oneworld's 10th birthday:

    * A standard oneworld livery that all of its member airlines will adopt on a proportion of their fleets, as a symbol of their renewed commitment to the alliance.

    * A 10% cut in the price of all of oneworld consumer fares for ten weeks. oneworld offers a wider range of alliance fares than all of its competitors, offering unrivalled choice for business executives travelling right around the world or student backpackers exploring one continent - and earning more than USD850 million for oneworld's member airlines last year.

    * The launch of its latest consumer fare - Circle Atlantic - offering travel through and between Europe and the Middle East, North America and South America.

    * On-line enhancements to make booking flights on all of its member airlines easier than ever before - whether they are frequent flyer award redemption flights or regular tickets. This puts oneworld on track to be the first alliance:

    * To enable its airlines' frequent flyer programme members to book on-line award flights on all oneworld airlines.
    * With every member airline selling through its own website flights operated by all its global alliance partners in conjunction with its own flights.

    * A chance for customers to win a pair of Business Class tickets for travel all the way around the world on oneworld's airline members, simply by saying what services and benefits they would most like the alliance to offer in the future.




(c) Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. Date posted: 04-Feb-08