Japan Airlines has been expanding its co-operation with its oneworld partners since reaffirming its membership of the alliance in February, filing days later with American Airlines for anti-trust immunity for a joint business across the Pacific and more than doubling its code-sharing with British Airways.
Meantime, American Airlines, British Airways, Iberia, Finnair and Royal Jordanian are looking forward imminently to gaining long-awaited final approval for their application for anti-trust immunity across the Atlantic and the proposed transatlantic joint business between American, BA and Iberia, following tentative approval given by the US Department of Transportation in February and market-testing of proposed remedies by the European Commission.
Elsewhere, LAN Airlines — widely recognized as the top airline in Latin America — celebrated its 10th anniversary as a oneworld member on June 1. Since joining, it has added its affiliates in Argentina, Ecuador and Peru to oneworld. Mexican airline Mexicana joined oneworld in November 2009, extending oneworld’s position as the leading alliance in Latin America.
Russia’s leading domestic carrier S7 Airlines is on track to join oneworld later this year.
Kingfisher Airlines’ addition to oneworld will link oneworld’s alliance network with India’s most-extensive domestic network. The airline will bring 56 cities onto the oneworld map, all of them in India. This will expand oneworld’s global coverage to more than 800 destinations in almost 150 countries, served by a combined fleet of 2,350 aircraft operating some 9,000 flights a day, carrying some 340 million passengers a year.
Oneworld says it will annnounce a firm date for Kingfisher Airlines to join the alliance and start offering its services and benefits as its implementation programme progresses.
The process to bring any airline into any alliance normally takes 18 to 24 months to complete, says oneworld. It is a complex project, covering virtually every facet of airline activity. In Kingfisher’s case it involves connecting all the alliance recruit’s IT systems to those in all the other oneworld airlines, as well as bringing its customer service, frequent flyer and distribution processes into line with oneworld standards. The process will culminate in what will be the biggest training and communications programmes in the airline’s history.
When it joins, the oneworld logo will be added alongside that of Kingfisher Airlines itself virtually everywhere the airline’s logo appears — including its aircraft fuselages, airport signage, stationery and even name tags.
Once it is part of oneworld, members of Kingfisher Airlines’ King Club will be able to earn and redeem rewards and gain tier status points across the entire oneworld network — expanding the reach of the scheme from the 69 destinations in nine countries served by Kingfisher Airlines itself to the 800 destinations in some 150 countries served by oneworld as a whole.
King Club members’ benefits will be extended, in effect, across all 12 other oneworld airlines, including, for top-tier members, access to any of the 550-plus airport lounges offered by the alliance’s carriers whenever they fly on any fare type on any flight operated and marketed by any oneworld member.
At the same time, Kingfisher Airlines’ network will be covered by oneworld’s range of alliance fares.
Since its launch in 2005, Kingfisher Airlines has established itself as India’s leading carrier in terms of domestic passengers boarded, daily flights (with more than 380 daily departures on average), customer-service quality and innovation.
Kingfisher carried 11.6 million passengers in its financial year to end 31 March 2010 with a share of 23 per cent of the domestic Indian air travel market.
It is India’s only five-star airline (and one of only five in the world), as rated by Skytrax, the independent airline-quality-research organisation. Besides being the first and only airline in India to offer in-flight entertainment at every seat, Kingfisher Airlines offers Live TV with 16 channels. It has received numerous awards for innovation and customer responsiveness — including all three prizes available to carriers from India and Central Asia in the Skytrax Airline of the Year 2010 awards. It covers all segments of air travel, from low fares to premium service.
The airline launched its first international routes in September 2008 and now serves oneworld hubs Bangkok, Hong Kong, London Heathrow and Singapore. Internationally, it also currently serves Colombo, Dubai, Dhaka and Khatmandu. In total, Kingfisher flies to 69 destinations worldwide — 61 of them in India — in nine countries and has its main hubs at Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
Kingfisher Airlines’ fleet of 66 aircraft, with an average age of five years, includes five Airbus A330s, eight A321s, 23 A320s, four A319s, 25 ATR 72-500s and two ATR 42s. It employs 7,400 staff.
During its latest financial year, to end March 2010, it generated revenues totalling INR52.7 billion (US$1.2 billion), with INR48.2 billion (US$1.1 billion) of that from its passenger business.
The 56 destinations across India that Kingfisher Airlines will add to the oneworld map include Agartala, Agatti, Ahmedabad, Aizawl, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bagdogra, Bhavnagar, Bhubaneswar, Bhuj, Calicut, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Dehradun, Dharamsala, Goa, Guwahati, Hubli, Imphal, Indore, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jammu, Jodhpur, Kandla, Kochi, Kolhapur, Kolkata, Kulu, Latur, Leh, Lucknow, Madurai, Mangalore, Nagpur, Nanded, Nasik, Patna, Port Blair, Pune, Raipur, Rajamundry, Ranchi, Salem, Sholapur, Silchar, Simla, Srinagar, Tirupati, Trichy, Trivandrum, Tuticorin, Udaipur, Varanasi, Vijayawada, and Vishakhapatnam.
Related to this story:
- Kingfisher Airlines’ Entry into Oneworld Is Postponed and Malév Suspends Operations
- Kingfisher Airlines to be Inducted into Oneworld Alliance in February
- American and Kingfisher Airlines Begin Reciprocal Frequent-Flyer Agreement
- Malaysia Airlines to Join the Oneworld Alliance in 2012
- American and Kingfisher Airlines to Codeshare from 2011
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