Kingfisher Airlines to Join oneworld

India’s Kingfisher Airlines has become a member elect of oneworld after completing a formal membership agreement with the airline alliance.

A key condition for oneworld inviting Kingfisher Airlines to join has already been met – with India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation granting approval for the carrier to become part of the alliance, just weeks after the airline filed its request for authority to proceed, enabling Kingfisher Airlines and oneworld to move fast forward to complete the formal membership agreement.

A team of experts from British Airways – which is serving as Kingfisher Airlines’ oneworld sponsor, mentoring and supporting it through its joining programme – and from the central oneworld team has just returned from visiting their Kingfisher Airlines counterparts in Mumbai and Delhi to set its joining programme in motion. The first element has already been successfully accomplished with Kingfisher Airlines passing oneworld’s safety audit.

The next step in building links between oneworld and Kingfisher Airlines takes place next month, with the opening of the new international passenger terminal at New Delhi, when all the alliance’s six carriers serving the Indian capital will share Kingfisher Airlines’ new premium passenger lounge there.

Meantime, individual members of oneworld have started developing bilateral co-operation with Kingfisher Airlines. British Airways has reached agreement to codeshare with its new Indian partner. The BA prefix will be added to Kingfisher flights to various points across the Indian sub-continent, with Kingfisher Airlines’ IT designator placed on services operated by the UK carrier to key cities in Europe from later this month.

Kingfisher Airlines’ addition to oneworld will link oneworld’s network with one of India’s most extensive domestic networks. It 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.

A firm date for Kingfisher Airlines to join the alliance and start offering its services and benefits is expected to be announced as its implementation programme progresses.

The process to bring any airline on board any alliance normally takes 18 to 24 months to complete. It is a complex project, covering virtually every facet of airline activity. It involves connecting all the alliance recruit’s IT systems to those in all other oneworld airlines, bringing its customer service, frequent flyer and distribution processes into line with oneworld standards and culminating in what will be the biggest training and communications programmes in the airline’s history.

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 across 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.

Their King Club 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 market-leading range of alliance fares.

Kingfisher Airlines Chairman and Chief Executive Vijay Mallya said, “Now that Kingfisher Airlines has now become a member-elect of oneworld, we have moved one crucial step closer towards becoming a full-fledged member and our team will certainly do all that is necessary to ensure we complete the implementation programme smoothly and on schedule.”

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