Flight International online news 16:30GMT:Japan Airlines (JAL) has confirmed plans to join the Oneworld alliance with a view to becoming a full member “as soon as possible”.
Asia’s largest airline says in a statement that it has “decided to apply to join the multilateral airline alliance, Oneworld”, and that it will now begin meeting with members of the grouping for detailed discussions.
“The decision to join the multilateral alliance is in line with JAL’s corporate policy to always think and act from the customers’ point of view,” it says.
“Up to now, JAL has followed a bilateral alliance policy but has always kept an eye on the activities of multilateral alliances and has decided that now is the time for it to participate in such a grouping.”
JAL had long been courted by Oneworld as a future member but repeatedly said it was not interested in joining a multilateral grouping. It has codeshare and frequent-flyer programme ties to members of all the major alliance groupings, and says in its statement today that it intends to maintain “present bilateral agreements”.
Group CEO Toshiyuki Shinmachi adds: “Becoming a member of Oneworld, while maintaining our bilateral agreements, would provide our customers with even greater convenience, comfort and value through a more extensive global network, integration of e-ticketing, the linkage of frequent-flyer mileage programmes, the mutual use of each other’s services such as lounges and by the creation of seamless travel. These are the reasons why we have decided to join Oneworld.
“We would like to start discussions with Oneworld so that we can become a full member of the alliance as soon as possible.”
Oneworld members include Aer Lingus, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Finnair, Iberia, LAN and Qantas Airways.
JAL is the third airline this year to announce its intention to join Oneworld. Last week Royal Jordanian said it would join late in 2006 or early in 2007, while earlier this year Hungary’s Malev said it intended to become a Oneworld member in 2006.
Source: Flight International
