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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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