News of Alaska joining oneworld originally broke back in February. Now everything is official, with the airline getting a formal invitation as of yesterday.
Everyone is quietly hoping that Alaska Airlines doesn’t mess around with its highly regarded frequent flyer programme with this news. What is interesting to me though is the time frame.
Alaska Joining Oneworld Quickly
Most of the time, alliance membership takes quite some time. For example, Japan Airlines and Royal Jordanian confirmed their plans to join oneworld to the media in October 2005. They did not actually join and start offering alliance benefits until April 2007.
The last new member, Royal Air Maroc announced their intention to join in December 2018. Official start date for them was April 2020.
Looks like future airlines will have that as the mark to beat. It’s certainly better than the usual 12 to 18 month joining period. Part of that is due to existing integration with some of the airlines, but perhaps also some is down to the pandemic. There’s probably more time to do it while demand is low.
Overall Thoughts
Alaska joining oneworld is good news to me. The fact it is happening virtually immediately certainly satisfies the requirement for instant gratification that the world demands today.
No doubt frequent flyers will be keeping a close eye on this one, especially the Mileage Plan members around the world. Let’s hope it all works out well!
Are you impressed with Alaska joining oneworld so quickly? Any concerns? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Images via Alaska Airlines.
