Airline alliances, mini guide to explain what they are

If you are a serial traveler you've hardly ever heard of the airline alliances, however, if you are not familiar with them, today we explain what they are and what they are used for.

It is very simply theunion of different carriers into a single group, called precisely alliance, with the aim of offering services always best e convenient To all travelers.

The most important service that alliances provide to so-called Frequent Flyer is the loyalty program. All members of an alliance who earn points and miles by traveling can spend them at any other airline belonging to the same alliance, convenient no?

The airline alliances are. 3 large conglomerates which bring together almost all the world's major carriers and are, in order of size, Star Alliance, SkyTeam e Oneworld.

Star Alliance

Born in 1997, Star Alliance is the most big and important of the three alliances. It boasts, in fact, the largest number of daily flights and destinations and serves multiple countries. To date it carries almost 730 million Of passengers.

Air companions founders are Air Canada, Lufthansa, SAS, Thai Airways and United Airlines.

It currently includes : Adira, Aegean, Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian, Avianca / Taca, Brussels Airlines, CopaAirlines, Croatia Airlines, Egyptair, Ethiopian, LOT, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Shenzhen Aurlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, Swiss, TAP Portugal, Thai, Turkish Airlines, and United Airlines.

SkyTeam

The youngest alliance, if you can call it that, came into being in 2000 and was founded by Aeromexico, Delta Air Lines and Korean Air under the name SkyTeam.

It is the second largest alliance in terms of number of members (a total of 19, including Alitalia) and people carried, which amount to about 630 million year. The member companies are:

Aeroflot, Aerolineas Argentinas, AeroMexico, Air Europe, Air France, China Airlines, China Eastern, China Sounthern, Czech Airlines, Delta Air Lines, ITA Airways Kenya Airways, KLM, Korean Air, Middle East Airlines, Saudia, TAROM, Vietnam Airlines, and Xiamen Air.

Oneworld

Finally, we have the third alliance, viz. Oneworld, founded in 1998 by American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas.

He has only 14 vectors, but thanks to therecent entry of Alaska Airlines and the market for United States, boasts a significant number of passengers carried per year, viz. 535 million.

Oneworld members are Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines, and SriLankan Arilines.

The importance of airline alliances

As we mentioned at the beginning, the advantage being a member of one or more alliances allows us to redeem miles award flying with all As many as the airlines that belong to that group.

It is still necessary to keep an eye on the advantages of converting one airline's points to another's: the cost of award travel is not the same between one carrier and another.

However, each program is independent, Alitalia's Millemiglia will be different from Air France even though they are both part of SkyTeam.

Do alliances include all airlines?

Dry answer: No.

Not all airlines have joined an alliance, there are major carriers that have decided to stay out of it and offer their own personal Frequent Fliers programs.

These include. Emirates, Virgin Atlantic, TPG Awards, Etihad and Virgin Australia. Several large low-cost airlines are also not present: this is the case with Southwest, JetBlue and WestJet in North America, Ryanair and EasyJet in Europe and Air Asia.

Mileage and points collection programs not only include alliance members, it often happens, in fact, that airlines that are outside the alliances cooperate with each other.

For example, you can transfer points American Express Membership Rewards to the program Skywards of Emirates and use the resulting miles to book a flight with JetBlue.

Now you know more about airline alliances, if you are new maybe in the future you will pay more attention to them and why not, you will also start collecting miles with one of the big 3.