Swiss International Air Lines to join oneworld airline alliance

Swiss International Air Lines today accepted an invitation to join the oneworld alliance. It was formally voted on board as the ninth carrier in one of the worlds leading international airline groupings after signing, with founding oneworld member British Airways, a memorandum of understanding to establish a wide-ranging commercial agreement. (see: British Airways signs commercial pact with Swiss International Air Lines.)

This complements co-operative links established during the past year with virtually all the alliance’s other partners. These include an extensive marketing alliance with American Airlines, covered by US anti-trust immunity, and code-sharing and/or frequent flyer links with Aer Lingus, Cathay Pacific Airways, Finnair, Iberia and Qantas. LanChile is oneworld’s other existing partner.

Work will now begin on the necessary preparations for SWISS to be a fully-fledged part of oneworld. Connecting its IT systems to those of its new partners, training its employees to deliver oneworld products and customer support and the other necessary tasks will take several months to complete. From then, the airline will start offering oneworld services and benefits. This is expected to be during the early part of 2004. 

Its election on board by the existing members was confirmed at a meeting in Zurich today with, representing all the alliance’s partners, the current Chairman of the oneworld Governing Board as Finnair’s Chief Executive, Keijo Suila, together with his British Airways’ counterpart Rod Eddington, American Airlines’ Executive Vice-President Marketing Dan Garton and oneworld Managing Partner John McCulloch, with SWISS Chairman Pieter Bouw and Chief Executive Andre Dose.

oneworld Governing Board Chairman Keijo Suila said: “SWISS has been seeking for some considerable time to join the world’s leading international airline alliance. We are delighted we have been able to agree terms, allowing us to welcome it on board.

“Its addition enables oneworld to maintain our strategy of limiting our alliance to a manageable sized grouping of high quality partners while filling our need for a partner in central Europe. Its main Zurich base provides us with another highly attractive hub on the continent, serving one of the world’s most important financial centres. We look forward to extending oneworld’s services and benefits to its customers next year.”

SWISS Chief Executive Andre Dose said: “We are proud to be a member of oneworld, one of the world’s leading airline alliances. SWISS as well as oneworld clients will benefit from the enhanced network, the joint frequent flyer programmes and better transfer services in Zurich.”