Malév invited to join oneworld alliance

Malév is set to join airline alliance, oneworld, after formally accepting an invitation to join the grouping at a ceremony Tuesday conducted in the presence of Hungary's Minister of Finance János Veres and Minister of Economy and Transport János Kóka.

The acceptance follows a memorandum of understanding reached between oneworld and Malév in May this year.

Since then, the Hungarian airline has satisfied audits by the alliance of its quality and safety standards and a review to ensure it can deliver oneworld's full range of customer services and benefits.

The formal invitation to join the alliance was subject to a number of conditions, including satisfactory progress in its turnaround plan towards profitability. The airline must also conclude bilateral agreements with interested existing partners.

Work will now begin on connecting its IT systems to those of its new partners, bringing key internal processes into line with oneworld requirements, training its employees to deliver oneworld products, customer benefits and support, and completing the other tasks needed before it can become a fully-fledged member of the alliance.

Finnair will act as Malév's sponsor into oneworld, working with it on these activities.

Until the joining process is completed, expected within the next 15 months, it is business and service as usual for both Malév and oneworld.

Malév is one of three airlines currently lining up to join oneworld. Royal Jordanian was voted on board as a member elect last month, and will start offering the alliance's services and benefits from around the turn of 2006/2007. Also last month, Japan Airlines, the third largest airline in the world in revenue terms, announced it had decided to seek membership.

Malév would expand oneworld's existing network by 11 destinations - Bourgas, Constanca, FlyBalaton (Sármellék), Ljubjana, Odessa, Podgorica, Sarajevo, Skopje, Timisoara, Tirgu-Mures and Zagreb - and three territories (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Slovenia). oneworld's existing members currently serve 134 countries and 602 destinations. With JAL, Royal Jordanian and Malév, the oneworld map would extend to 689 destinations in 141 countries and territories.

Three existing oneworld partners currently serve Malév's Budapest base - Aer Lingus, British Airways and Finnair. Malév itself operates to established oneworld hubs Helsinki, London Heathrow, Madrid, New York, Dublin, Cork and Bangkok.

Malév already has a code-sharing agreement with oneworld partner Finnair and is currently discussing additional bilateral co-operation with various other members of the alliance.

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