kingfisher airline sand Malaysia Airlines to join oneworld alliance

Malaysia Airlines is to join oneworld, adding one of aviation's most frequent award winners to the world's leading quality airline alliance.

Malaysia Airlines was unanimously elected a oneworld member designate by the Chief Executives of the alliance's member airlines, at a meeting on the sidelines of IATA's 2011 World Air Transport Summit, which opens in Singapore today.

A formal alliance membership agreement will be completed soon.

Malaysia Airlines is expected to start flying as part of oneworld late next year.

As it prepares for its alliance membership, Malaysia Airlines intends to develop bilateral links with a number of oneworld's established partners, who include some of the biggest and best names in the airline industry. It already code-shares with oneworld partners Cathay Pacific and Royal Jordanian.

When it becomes part of oneworld, its customers will gain access to the alliance's truly global network. It will expand oneworld's global coverage to almost 950 destinations in 150 countries, served by a combined fleet of more than 2,600 aircraft operating some 10,000 flights a day and carrying 358 million passengers a year.

Three established oneworld member airlines currently serve Malaysia, with Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines and Royal Jordanian flying to Kuala Lumpur, and Cathay Pacific also to Penang and, through its Dragonair affiliate, Kota Kinabalu. Opportunities for expanding the alliance's coverage of the country will be explored as Malaysia Airlines prepares to join.