Japan Airlines (JAL) has opted to join the Oneworld alliance after years of studies and expects to complete all membership formalities within two years.
The Asia-Pacific’s largest airline said last week that it had “decided to apply to join” Oneworld and that formal membership discussions would begin immediately.
JAL had long been courted by Oneworld, but it repeatedly said it was not interested in being part of a multilateral grouping. JAL has codeshare and frequent-flyer programme ties to members of all the major alliance groupings and says it intends to maintain “present bilateral agreements”.
“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,” the airline says.
JAL expects to complete membership formalities and become a full partner in one to two years. The process will see formal membership discussions starting, leading to the signing of a memorandum of understanding. A letter of invitation will then follow that will specify a timetable for entry.
Oneworld says American Airlines, a founding member, will be JAL’s main sponsor, “assisted by Cathay Pacific”, which is another founding member. JAL will expand the alliance’s existing network by around 10% with 68 additional destinations, 56 of them in Japan and five in China.
NICHOLAS IONIDES/SINGAPORE
Source: Flight International
