Kingfisher Airlines, India’s second biggest carrier by number of passengers carried, has become a member of the Oneworld alliance, a global grouping of airlines.
The process of coming on board will take the airline 18-24 months. A memorandum of understanding to enter the group was signed in February this year and the contract was signed on Monday after meeting the key condition for being a part of Oneworld — approval from ministry of civil aviation and other regulatory authorities.
Manoj Chacko, vice president (commercial), Kingfisher Airlines, said, “By joining the alliance we will be able to fly 800 destinations in 150 countries. Currently we have connectivity to 70 destinations in 12 cities. We are aggressive about expanding our domestic network further.”
Members of Oneworld include Qantas, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia and Japan Airlines.
Individual members have also started developing bilateral co-operation with Kingfisher. British Airways has reached an agreement to codeshare with Kingfisher.
Kingfisher recently won rights for flights between New Delhi and London’s Heathrow airport, which it plans to start in March next year. It already flies from Mumbai to London and has Bangkok, Hong Kong, Dubai and Singapore on its international network.
Jet Airways (the country’s largest airline), is not part of any such alliance yet, while Air India has paid to join Star Alliance, the biggest airline grouping.
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