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The CEOs of oneworld member airlines met in London on Friday to unveil what the global alliance has described as a ‘radical transformation’, as it marks the 20th anniversary of its launch. This transformation includes:
These changes are reflected in new brand positioning for oneworld that encourages passengers to ‘Travel Bright’ – complete with a new oneworld website.
“In the two decades since oneworld was launched, the industry and consumer behaviours have changed fundamentally. Most of our member airlines have undergone comprehensive restructuring. Some have merged. When oneworld first took off, hardly any airline offered online bookings. Smartphones were in the future. Social media did not exist. Airline fares included everything. Low-cost carriers were in their infancy,” said oneworld CEO Rob Gurney.
“Since then, global alliances have grown greatly in terms of membership but, to be frank, they have failed to keep pace with the changes that their members, the industry at large and the marketplace have experienced. At oneworld, we are making up for that. As we enter our third decade, we are undergoing a radical transformation, with a host of fresh initiatives to strengthen further the relevance of the alliance to our member airlines and our customers.”
oneworld was launched on 1 February 1999 by founding members American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways and Qantas. Since then, they have been joined by Finnair and Iberia, on 1 September 1999, then LATAM (then LanChile) on 1 June 2000, Japan Airlines and Royal Jordanian on 1 April 2007, S7 Airlines on 15 November 2010, Malaysia Airlines on 1 February 2013, Qatar Airways on 30 October 2013 and SriLankan Airlines on 1 May 2014. Royal Air Maroc was invited into the alliance in December and is on track to join during 2020. Fiji Airways was introduced as the first oneworld connect partner in December 2018, offering a subset of the alliance’s services and benefits, and is on track for full implementation next month.