The Oneworld alliance has designated SriLankan Airlines to become a member of the Oneworld alliance. The statement talks about this happening in 18 months but it is safe to say that that is likely to take a bit longer as integration into the alliance typically takes considerable effort on the candidate members’ part.

SriLankan Airlines is a good fit with Oneworld despite its small size. It currently serves a great majority of Oneworld hubs and focus cities. SriLankan has flights to hubs such as London, Singapore, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Dubai, Delhi, Hong Kong, Rome, Moscow, Dublin, Athens, Paris and Brussels. All of which are served more than adequately by Oneworld partners and most have dominant Oneworld airlines operating from them.

What’s in it for Oneworld? For one, it adds Sri Lanka to the map and that’s an area experiencing exceptional growth since peace settled on the country. It also provides connecting service to destinations in the region such as the Maldives and southern India. Colombo, Sri Lanka is potentially an excellent connecting point for partners airlines to use as a stopping point for flights from Australia to the Middle East and/or Europe.

It’s good for Oneworld but I’m waiting for American Airlines to start blowing its horn about this being a fundamental part of their revenue strategy with codeshare partners. If that happens, I’m laughing.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax