Qatar Airways will join the alliance ‘Oneworld’, which will add 856 destinations

Qatar Airways has announced its entry into the airline alliance ‘Oneworld’, the integration process will take between 12 and 18 months, and whose accession will add 856 destinations in 159 countries to the alliance.

The announcement was made at a press conference that was attended by the CEO of Qatar Airways, Akbar Al Baker, the president and CEO of American Airlines, Tom Horton, who is also chairman of the board of ‘Oneworld’, the counselor IAG CEO Willie Walsh, and the CEO of the alliance, Bruce Ashby.

The company will thus become the second member of this alliance Middle East, which belongs IAG and American Airlines among others, after Royal Jordanian, which was the first airline in the region to join ‘Oneworld’ in 2007.

Qatar Airways, with 15 years of existence and owned 50% by the State, is the first of three big Gulf airlines who joins an alliance and the second largest scheduled airline in the world without any alliance membership to today.

The entry of the airline, which covers 120 destinations in 70 countries in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Asia and Australia, will add to the commercial network of ‘Oneworld’ 15 new destinations and three countries-Iran, Rwanda and Seychelles.

However, since the alliance stress that inclusion flight strengthen the alliance in new alternative routes to destinations that are flying companies belonging to ‘Oneworld’, especially between Asia and Southern Europe or from Asia and Africa, offering connections to a single scale.

So, with the entry of Qatar Airways ‘Oneworld’ will feature 856 destinations in 159 countries with a combined fleet of 2,600 aircraft operating more than 9,300 flights. Among them will add about one million passengers a day (342 million annually) and annual revenues of almost 120,000 million (92,830 million euros).

Codeshare Agreements

Qatar Airways already has a codeshare agreement with Malaysia Airlines, which also incorporate ‘Oneworld’ shortly. Also, will launch bilateral agreements with other airlines in the alliance as the date approaches its final incorporation.

As part of its integration, its passengers will have access to the global network of cities in the alliance. Thus, the 2.2 million members of ‘FlySmiLes’, its frequent flyer program, may earn and use points Airlines ‘Oneworld’ and any of the 550 airport lounges of the alliance. Also, the 125 million frequent flyer airline forming the group can add and use points when flying with Qatar.