Boutique Middle Eastern airline Oman Air is set to join the oneworld alliance in 2024 after being announced during the IATA Annual General Meeting held in Doha, Qatar, this week. While Oman Air is certainly not a large airline, it does represent some new opportunities and benefits for travellers globally - here’s what it means for you.

What’s an alliance anyway?

Some frequent flyers may gawp at this question but for the general population who are not aviation obsessed, like myself, it’s a slightly abstract concept. At the most basic level, it is when two or more airlines agree to work with each other to varying degrees (based off this Simple English definition). Globally, there are three key alliances which matter:

• Star Alliance: the world’s largest alliance including airlines such as Lufthansa Group, Singapore Airlines and ANA.

• SkyTeam: 18* members including Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines. *Excludes Aeroflot who are currently suspended due to Russian sanctions

• oneworld: The smallest alliance globally with 14** member airlines including British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qatar Airways. **Excludes S7 Airways due to Russian sanctions.

What are the benefits of an alliance?

While the definition may just allude to the vague premise of multiple airlines working together, the actual practice of global alliances is useful both for passengers and airlines. One of the key benefits for all customers, regardless of the cabin you are flying, is the increase cooperation there is between member airlines of an alliance with the ability to seamlessly connect on one ticket. While this is possible without an alliance, it is made easier because there needs to be a certain harmonisation of systems to make it work more efficiently and effectively.

An example of this could be a passenger could be a person who wants to fly from Helsinki to Sydney. They can fly from Helsinki to Hong Kong on Finnair before connecting onto a Cathay Pacific flight onwards to Sydney. While this may seem like a basic premise, it does make a genuine difference being able to use a single application to check in as well as manage all elements of a booking. Likewise this could be the same for a passenger flying from Frankfurt to Singapore on Lufthansa and then Singapore to Sydney on Singapore Airlines - it benefits the consumer to have the alliance connectivity as well as improve an airline’s global reach.

But wait…there’s more

I mentioned that the above benefits are for all, but for frequent flyers the benefits are maximised even more. Looking at oneworld specifically, there are three key frequent flyer membership levels:

• oneworld Ruby which translates to BA Bronze entitles you to Business Class Check In, upgrade priority and priority reserved seating.

• oneworld Sapphire which equals BA Silver gives you the above as well as Business Class lounge access, priority boarding, priority luggage delivery and extra baggage allowance.

• oneworld Emerald which equates to BA Gold is the above plus First Class Lounge access and fast track security.

While this can only be achieved through either a high volume of flying or a high amount of Business and First Class travel, these are genuine benefits to travellers and importantly can be accessed when flying on the cheapest Economy tickets. Great stuff!

Oman Air: tell me more

Oman Air was founded in 1993 primarily as a domestic airline servicing the Sultanate. Since then, the airline has expanded and now serves as far west as London Heathrow and east as Manila. On most routes, the airline offers Economy Class and Business Class, which features an impressive seat, while to London Heathrow they offer First Class additionally. Oman Air operates seven different aircraft types including the Airbus A330-200 and -300, Boeing 737-800, -900ER and MAX8, as well as the Boeing 787-8 and -9. Below is a comparison of the oneworld member route network (left) and that of Oman Air (right).

What impact will there be?

Firstly, any frequent flyer with a oneworld airline will benefit from the status level they hold while flying on Oman Air. In addition, oneworld flyers will be able to spend their airline miles or points, such as BA/Iberia/Qatar Avios or Cathay Asia Miles, to redeem flights on Oman Air. Personally, this could be beneficial as I will often need to fly to Manila and there are limited oneworld options to get to the country currently. Arguably the bigger winners are Oman Air’s Sindbad frequent flyers will be entitled to member benefits on hundreds more routes than they currently do.

By adding Oman Air, oneworld flyers will have access to a negligible three additional destinations which are Duqm and Khasab in Oman as well as Chittagong in Bangladesh. While this is a slight increase in connecting destinations, it increases consumer options nonetheless. The alliance will also benefit by cementing themselves as the alliance of choice in the Middle East (ME) and North Africa region. Qatar Airways is one of the ‘ME3’ airlines, alongside Emirates and Etihad, who are super-connectors offering passengers the ability to travel across an array of destinations globally with one-stop connections. With the addition of Oman Air, oneworld will now have four members in the MENA region - the others being Royal Jordanian and Royal Air Maroc. Comparatively, Star Alliance has only one ‘real’ MENA airline in Egyptair but you could also include Ethiopian Airlines which is nearby while Skyteam have only Saudia. Emirates are unlikely to join an alliance any time soon due to their global dominance and popularity while Etihad may look towards an alliance as a method to improve connectivity as they transition to become a ‘boutique airline’. In a world where bigger often means better, oneworld will now have the biggest network within the Middle East and North Africa.