Fiji Airways is a small international airline, with a fleet of just 14 aircraft. It was great to see them join oneworld as the 14th member of the alliance in March 2025. Now that has happened, it begs the question – what is holding back Aer Lingus?
The Irish airline was a member of oneworld through to April 2007. They departed the same time as Japan Airlines, Royal Jordanian and Hungary’s Malév joined. Reporting at the time suggested it would have cost Aer Lingus €2.5 million and six months of work just to integrate with JAL, so it did not work from a cost/benefit perspective.
Will Aer Lingus Join Oneworld?
That all occurred almost 20 years ago and a lot has happened in the intervening years. Technology has moved at a rapid pace, and if an airline as small as Fiji Airways can afford to join, you would think there is nothing stopping Aer Lingus, which is over four times the size.
Fiji Airways did adopt the AAdvantage programme for its frequent flyers. Presumably this made the integration a lot simpler, as American Airlines was a founding member of the alliance back in the late 1990s.
Technology has also moved on. These days it is not quite as difficult to link together disparate systems as it was around the turn of the century. While there will no doubt be some cost and some effort involved it can’t really be so much as to be a show stopper.
Overall Thoughts
Ever since Aer Lingus left, people have been waiting for them to join oneworld again. Expectations were high when the Irish carrier joined the Transatlantic Joint Business with British Airways, American Airlines, Iberia and Finnair (all alliance members) and yet nothing has happened yet.
From a frequent flyer perspective, it would be a great thing. In fact, when I first arrived in Ireland I was happy there was a oneworld airline there for me to earn my points on. Sadly that didn’t last long, and since then I’ve joined everyone else, waiting. (Of course, most of us had to take Plan B and join the British Airways Executive Club, but nowadays that isn’t as attractive as it once was!).
What say you? Do you have any ideas why an airline like Fiji Airways can join oneworld, yet Aer Lingus can’t? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Tokyo Spotter on Airliners.net.
Aer Lingus by Mitchul Hope.
EI leadership sees the loyalty program as a cost center. They have no interest in investing in it or trying to leverage it to drive more business. Sometime I feel as if the have it under duress from their bosses at IAG
I don’t know if they can make a lot more money off it, considering Ireland’s population. I know there are a lot people from the US and Europe who also use Aer Lingus, but for any of those people it would be a bit niche compared to their local airlines. Also with Ireland’s population, it also limits things a fair bit when it comes to really making a lot of money off the programme… so there are other factors at play.
A big reason is apparently EI’s inhouse GDS, which is said to be a lot cheaper to use than Amadeus or Sabre.
Hopefully EI will transition to Amadeus like BA/IB eventually, and be able to integrate more with IAG/Oneworld.
Yes, you’re probably correct. The Aer Lingus reservations system is called Astral and it’s their own system and it would probably need more development to get it working with JAL and so on. That being said, 20-odd years have passed and it’s not like it’s never been upgraded to interface with the other GDS systems in use, so maybe this would be simpler and cheaper today as well.
They can’t join? Or won’t join? Because of the costs associated with being in an alliance?
They haven’t made any moves to join and nobody knows why. If it’s not cost (if the the Fiji example proves that’s not the limiting factor) then what is it?