What Is An Airline Alliance?

You may have benefitted from an airline alliance without even realizing it. Many of the advantages provided by airline alliances are already integrated into the traveler’s experience. Let’s take a look at the multiple ways airline alliances enhance your travels and how you can maximize the opportunities that airline alliances provide.

Codeshare Flights

Have you ever taken a flight booked through one airline but operated by another? This type of flight is called a codeshare. Codesharing allows an airline to sell flights on partner airlines. By assigning their own flight number to the partner’s flight, the airline is able to issue a single ticket to travelers, regardless of who operates the flight. This means an itinerary with multiple connections can be booked all the way through with the same airline, even if some of the flights are operated by partner airlines. The result is a simpler, seamless customer experience with respect to booking, check-in, baggage and elite status recognition.

Through codeshares, airlines can effectively expand their route network, giving their customers more choice, both in destinations and schedules.

For example, here’s a codeshare flight on American Airlines from New York (JFK) to Athens (ATH) with a connection in London (LHR).

The flight from LHR to ATH is on a British Airways airplane, but American Airlines has assigned its own flight number to it—AA 6855.

Earning and Redeeming Points and Miles

Alliance partners allow you to earn or redeem points with any of the alliance members. That means if you fly Air Canada, you can earn United miles since both airlines are Star Alliance members. The ability to designate which frequent flyer program to credit with your flight is valuable as it helps consolidate your points earnings into one program. Without an alliance, travelers would earn points in multiple separate programs, making it more difficult to accumulate enough for an award redemption.

On the redemption side, airline alliances broaden and increase the available award flights since travelers can earn points in one alliance member program and redeem them in another. For example, you can redeem American Airlines miles for award flights on Japan Airlines because both are members of Oneworld. Award availability varies and is capacity-controlled by individual alliance members, but the fact that there are more airlines to redeem from overall increases the chances of finding an award. In some cases, points can also be used for upgrades on member airlines

Elite Status Recognition

Elite status in one airline alliance member program is recognized by other alliance member programs. This means you can still receive many of your elite status benefits when flying with any other alliance member.

The ability to credit your paid flights to a single airline program within an alliance makes it easier to earn or retain airline elite status and to continue to enjoy the perks that elite status provides.

Individual airline frequent flyer status translates to an equivalent alliance status. For example, if you have United MileagePlus Premier Gold status, that gives you Star Alliance Gold status. Benefits that are extended may include priority check-in, fast track security lane, priority boarding, extra baggage allowance and airline lounge access, depending on the level of elite status.

Airline alliances also maintain their own small network of alliance-branded lounges which adds more options to the much larger network of airline member lounges. Star Alliance and Skyteam each have lounges in six locations worldwide, while Oneworld recently established its first two branded lounges in Amsterdam Schipol Airport (AMS) and Incheon International Airport, South Korea (ICN).

Centralized Customer Service

Flying multiple airlines, each with its own reservation numbers, can cause major headaches if something goes wrong in the middle of your journey—especially if the airlines cannot communicate with one another.

Alliances enable airlines to operate with centralized customer services, so that when things go wrong, one airline’s customer service team can adjust, rebook or otherwise repair the itinerary with minimal hassle. Both the traveler and airline benefit from integrated operations, making the process of dealing with unexpected events less complicated and stressful.

There are three dominant airline alliances, each containing a major U.S. airline. Here’s a rundown of each of the alliances and their membership.

Oneworld

Oneworld was founded in 1999. The alliance flies to more than 900 destinations worldwide and members include:

• Alaska Airlines
• American Airlines
• British Airways
• Cathay Pacific
• Finnair
• Iberia
• Japan Airlines
• Malaysia Airlines
• Oman Air (future member)
• Qantas Airways
• Qatar Airways
• Royal Air Maroc
• Royal Jordanian
• Srilankan Airlines
• Fiji Airways (Oneworld Connect)

SkyTeam

Founded in 2000, SkyTeam has grown into an alliance operating routes to over 1,000 destinations within 160-plus countries. Members include:

• Aeroflot (suspended)
• Aerolineas Argentinas
• Aeromexico
• Air Europa
• Air France-KLM
• China Airlines
• China Eastern
• Czech Airlines
• Delta Air Lines
• Garuda Indonesia
• ITA Airways
• Kenya Airways
• Korean Air
• Middle East Airlines
• Saudia
• Scandinavian Airlines (SAS)
• TAROM
• Vietnam Airlines
• Virgin Atlantic
• XiamenAir

Star Alliance

The largest alliance, Star Alliance, was founded in 1997. Today it serves over 1,200 airports and operates over 16,000 daily flights. Members include:

• Aegean Airlines
• Air Canada
• Air China
• Air India
• Air New Zealand
• All Nippon Airways (ANA)
• Asiana Airlines
• Austrian Airlines
• Avianca
• Brussels Airlines
• Copa Airlines
• Croatia Airlines
• EgyptAir
• Ethiopian
• EVA Air
• LOT Polish Airlines
• Lufthansa
• Shenzhen Airlines
• Singapore Airlines
• South African Airways
• Swiss
• TAP Air Portugal
• Thai Airways
• Turkish Airlines
• United Airlines

Airline alliances provide many benefits, whether you fly occasionally or weekly. Understanding how alliances work can help enhance your travels by making use of the integration of alliance airlines in terms of elite benefits and shared services. Additionally, alliances can help you accumulate frequent flyer points faster, increase your access to award flights and earn airline elite status faster.