As of 2004, the
oneworld
airline alliance consists of:
Together, oneworld covers 553
airports on six continents, as well as 380
VIP lounges and some 227 million passengers each year. American and BA account for about half of the alliance's traffic and, together, serve almost all of its destinations.
AA, BA, Cathay, Qantas, and Canadian Airlines announced their alliance in 1998. Finnair and Iberia joined in 1999, and Aer Lingus and LanChile joined in 2000. That year, Canadian left the alliance when it was bought out by Air Canada (a member of the Star Alliance). However, Trans World Airlines was absorbed by American in 2001, further broadening the alliance.
The original idea behind oneworld was to allow any member airline's lounge members to use any other airline's lounges, and to allow any member airline's frequent flyer miles to be used toward tickets on any other airline. Since then, oneworld has expanded to offer a wide array of special tickets for round-the-world flights, regional tours, and multiple flights within a specific corridor, with a single fare that can be applied to tickets on any member airline.
More recently, oneworld has become a logistic mechanism as well. AA and Qantas, for instance, coordinate their operations at Los Angeles International Airport to make it easy for passengers to connect between the two airlines. There are also a variety of code sharing arrangements between the member airlines, allowing them to project their route networks onto continents that they don't actually serve.
oneworld has managing offices in the Marine Building in Vancouver.
www.oneworld.com